


Collide the Space That Divides Us

by acaciapines



Series: How to Accidentally Fall in Love With the Enemy [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, HTTYD AU, Interspecies Relationship(s), YES i will only write niche aus for myself thank you for noticing, barry is hiccup, dragons are just as smart/sentient as humans, lup is toothless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 62,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21664681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaciapines/pseuds/acaciapines
Summary: Lup is a Night Fury, and Barry a Viking. Them meeting should end with one dead and the other victorious. That's...not what happens. Not evenclose.What does happen, though, is way, way better, they both agree.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Series: How to Accidentally Fall in Love With the Enemy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562551
Comments: 128
Kudos: 53





	1. lup has a bad day

Every time Lup flies, she gets the urge to pick a direction and follow it until her wings no longer beat, and she has no choice but to stop. She wants to see, to experience—she knows deep in her heart that life is more than flying between human-islands and taking their food. The air is cool under her wings, keeping her aloft, and she climbs higher, keeping her steady pace. She won’t leave, she already knows this. But the desire is deep in her wings, and she can feel them twitching with it. Part of her thinks it would be easy. She’s only ever met the one dragon like her, but she knows that she’s made to fly, to explore.

She’s fast and nimble and is takes a lot to get her tired. What else would she be doing? Spending all her days fishing? Lup doesn’t think so.

“What are you buzzing about?” Taako asks, and Lup’s ear-flaps flare as she looks down to see her brother, just underneath her. He tilts his head, and flaps once, enough to get him up and bumping into her underbelly. She swats at him, but follows his direction and spirals upwards. Taako hurls after her, and joins her up above the clouds.

They’re usually the first ones to the islands. They can waste time in the sky. And Taako seems like he very much wants to, because he comes to a stop and just hovers there, wings beating to keep him aloft. “I could hear you thinking,” he says, as if trying to prompt an answer. “You usually aren’t this antsy.”

“Just…” Lup shakes herself. “Just thinking, you know how it is. Could I convince you to go north?”

Taako crinkles his nose. “Too cold,” he says. He spins and dives down, and Lup rolls her eyes as she follows after him. “You still caught up on wanting to leave, then?”

“You want to leave, too,” she reminds her brother, slamming her wings back out before she goes into the ocean, and leveling herself out. “And I know we can’t. Flying just makes me think about it.”

“Hmm,” Taako says, “I guess I get that.” Lup ducks under him, and comes to a stop—they’ve made it to the human village. She can see their tiny fires burning, from this distance. “Oh,” Taako says, noticing as well. “Thought we had more time before we got here.”

“Yeah,” Lup agrees. She doesn’t like raiding. She knows it’s necessary—she very much doesn’t want to be eaten, and the oceans around their nest have long since been overfished. But too many flockmates have been picked off by humans, and she doesn’t want that to happen to either her or Taako. She glances behind them, and sings a soft looking-sound. It comes back to her carrying the names of dragons. “Everyone else should be here soon,” she tells Taako.

“Might as well get to it, then,” Taako says, sounding not at all enthused by the situation. Lup snorts, bumps against her brother, and sets her wings towards the island.

The air is soon full and chaotic, with not just dragons, but the many sharp-fanged weapons of the humans. Lup flattens her ears against the roaring of her flock and the nonsense noises that humans make—she’s not here for any of that. She’s here for a sheep, or seven, and maybe stealing some fish for herself because sheep are good for not dying but awful if she has to eat them herself.

She circles the village as she searches for a target. There are already dragons on the ground, but Lup’s known since day one that the ground is the worst spot for a dragon to be. Her home is the sky, her home is the wind under her wings, the smell of it, the taste of it. She makes a low pass over the island, but any sheep that were out in the open have either been moved or taken, so she huffs and spirals back upwards. As she does so, she catches sight of a large, deep red dragon, surrounded by humans and only attacking with their claws.

Out of fire, then. Lup personally has never known the feeling—she doesn’t think she and Taako run out of fire like some other dragons do—but she’s always up for a daring rescue. She shrieks, “look out!” before she spits a ball of blasting-fire at the humans surrounding the dragon. The humans make the general terrified noises they do whenever Lup attacks them, and she takes just a second to preen. Humans are _fearful_ of her and Taako, and she’s never even been close enough to a human for them to see her in detail! It’s rather funny, she thinks.

Another blast frees the trapped dragon, who takes off into the sky. Lup nods up after them, and rises herself, before anyone can spot her. Where’s Taako? They raid together, but she doesn’t think she’s seen him at all, since she first started circling the island.

A few rounds of her looking-sounds bring back nothing but _dragons_ , all around her, which she could already see and hear. Lup huffs.

“Taako?” she calls, and lifts herself higher with a downdrift of her wings, ear-flaps pricked. “Taako!”

She catches sight of a black blur against the clouds, and darts after her brother. She finds him by slamming into him, and Taako is knocked off-kilter by it, yelping and flailing his wings. Lup watches him fall, and grins, squinting happily.

“Thanks for that,” Taako says, once he’s managed to right himself and return to Lup’s level. She swats at him, and resumes her circling of the island, this time, with Taako right beside her. “I’m trying to impress Kravitz, it’s hard to do that if you’re just going to follow me and throw me off.”

Lup stares hard at her brother. “We’re raiding,” she says.

Taako snorts. “Yeah, I’m aware,” he says, and then his ear-flaps stand straight on end, and he dives down and into the ocean. Lup follows after him, but before she’s even made it to the water, Taako’s rocketed out, and Lup just gets a faceful of seawater. She sneezes, and Taako, the horrible brother that he is, slaps his tail against the waves to splash her more.

He is, she notices, holding a mouthful of fish, and Lup’s annoyance is forgotten. She snatches one, and Taako just yelps, but she gulps it down before he can do anything. Finally! She hasn’t eaten real food in what feels like forever.

“Those were mine,” Taako mumbles around his mouthful, and then swallows them all. Greedy. “Well. Seeya around, then.”

“Hey!” Lup yells, as Taako speeds away from her. She spirals upwards after him, going a bit higher, so she can then tuck her wings close and dive down to catch him, slamming the weight of herself against him. He isn’t thrown so off-balance, this time, but he growls at her, and is broken out of his dance. “We are _raiding!”_ she repeats. “Stop showing off!”

“You,” Taako says, diving towards the human-island, “are just jealous I have a crush.” He does, however, stop just short of it, and veers into a sharp turn to resume circling. Lup falls into place beside him. “When else am I supposed to impress Krav? Fleeing from the king?” He snorts, and the tip of his wing brushes against hers.

“I’m not jealous,” Lup says, because she isn’t. It’s not Taako’s fault she’s not into anyone back on the island, and it’s not like she’s dying for someone to share a romance with. She’s got Taako, nothing is going to change that. She’s glad Taako’s looking to start something with Kravitz, and most of the time, she’d be for sitting back and watching her brother make a fool of himself in the air. “It’s just…” she’s cut off by Taako, who whooshes out in front of her, and banks steeply upwards.

Taako’s _aggravating,_ most of the time. She races after him, her ear-flaps pricked to listen for the reflections of her looking-sounds when she can’t see the gleam of Taako’s dark scales. Moonless nights are perfect for raiding—Lup’s almost certain humans can’t see in the dark—but awful when it comes to finding her flighty brother.

Lup’s pretty sure Kravitz isn’t even on this side of the island! What is Taako expecting? Nobody has time for fanciful flying on raids, because if you aren’t paying attention, you die! The both of them have lost dragons close to them here, the most recent one being their old nest-sitter—what is Taako playing at?

Then again. He does have a point. There aren’t many chances they get to just go free-flying, not with the king around.

Lup sighs. No reason to think about that.

“Taa _ko!”_ she growls, as her ear-flaps swivel left and she follows them, catching up to her brother yet again. She slams into his side, and he regains his balance almost in an instant, spinning to face her.

“What, Lup?” he snaps, wings beating against the wind. “I don’t know what you’re so scared of! Humans are terrified of us, one shriek and they run off like rabbits! The night is our element, and we’re faster and more agile than any of our other flockmates. There’s literally no reason for you to be following me.”

“Dad says we stick together,” Lup says. Taako’s not usually this mad at her—his anger is a playful thing. And this isn’t that.

“ _Merle,”_ Taako stresses, and Lup rolls her eyes. “Has been flying on his own since before we hatched, so he can’t say anything. And he isn’t our dad.”

“What else do you call the dragon who raised you?” Lup asks, but her ear-flaps droop and she sighs. Taako’s…she doesn’t like it. She never will—she wants to be with her brother because they always have been, even before they hatched. They shared an egg! She likes being close to him! But.

“A nest-sitter,” Taako says, bumping against her.

“Our nest-sitter was killed by humans,” Lup says, but she’s not going to fight Taako more on the dad thing. He’s got to deal with that one himself.

“We don’t know that,” Taako says, but he doesn’t sound like he believes it himself. Humans don’t leave dragons alive. “Lulu…I’ll be safe. Promise. See you back at the nest?”

“Yeah,” Lup mutters, dropping her gaze. Taako gives her a crinkle-eyed grin and takes off into the sky. Lup watches him go until she can’t see him anymore.

If Taako isn’t going to be raiding, she’ll have to get enough for the both of them. It’s not…she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t like any of this, but at least raiding she’s good at. She soars over the island, keeping an eye out for any target, and blinks when she spots something tall and wooden. It’s burning, but not on fire, so it’s one of those weird human fires.

Humans are very, very bad at fire. With a hissing whistle of wind, Lup tucks her wings in close as she aims for the tower, and she blasts it with a shot of her own flames, that sends out a little ripple of a heatwave. Lup zips past the tower, feels the flames lick at her sides as it collapses into the ocean. She hears yells from the humans—the sounds _Night Fury!_ that mean her and Taako. Lup laughs, and spirals upwards before any human can get a good look at her, backlit against the flames.

There’s no food, unfortunately. Maybe Lup should’ve stolen more fish from Taako. At least then she’d die on a full stomach.

A few more passes of the island show her nothing of interest, most things already burning. Dragons are leaving, too, with their catches clasped tight in their talons. Lup looks down at her own, and yeah, there’s nothing in there. Maybe Kravitz will take pity on Taako and give him something, and then Lup can steal half from Taako. That’s her best bet now, she thinks.

In an empty patch of air, silent other than the beating of her own wings, Lup sighs. She should go, too. Nobody wants to be the last dragon left at a raid. But she’s got flames building up inside of her, so she shrieks and blasts them at a rocky formation—the flames break against the rocks, though a few bits crumble and fall into the ocean. Lup purrs.

She spreads her wings wide to catch the air and glide, because she’s tired and ready to do as little work as possible getting back home. Taako promised to meet her at the nest, and she wants nothing more than to yawn and curl up asleep beside her brother.

Lup’s ear-flaps prick up when she hears the silent crack of something, and she turns towards the sound in time to see something flying at her. She yelps, but isn’t able to move in time, and the—whatever it is, some human weapon—tangles around her wings and her tail. She tries to flare her wings but gets nothing. She tries to lash her tail, and just gets something sharp and burning.

Well. Fuck.

The ground rushes up to Lup, and she can’t do anything to stop it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cover art by my WONDERFUL [FRIEND](https://www.instagram.com/o.ctorose/?hl=en) WHO I LOVE AND CHERISH!!! everyone go stare at it again because i haven't been able to stop!!!!!!! she deserves all the love and support beucase it's!!!! so!!! good!!!! 
> 
> title inspired by the song [superposition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxJhrwyn0M4) by young the giant. thank my friend for this title!!! the song fits fucking PERFECTLY and i cannot believe it. 
> 
> and finally!! it's here!!! the httyd au i've been unable to stop thinking about!! i love dragons and i love taz really what else was i supposed to do. i have a whole entire notes doc on my ipad that's scenes from the as of now unwritten sequels. my desire to stop writing my novel to write httyd 2 and 3 in this verse is...extreme. i could talk about httyd forever.
> 
> next update in roughly a week!


	2. barry also has a bad day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragons are raiding, and of course, the one time Barry does a cool thing, nobody is around to see it. Typical, really.

Barry’s not entirely sure what he’s expecting to see when he opens the door out of the blacksmith. For one, there’s windows, and also entire sections of the building without any walls, so it’s not like he can’t already see outside. And second, he can hear, and outside is loud with the mixed-together yells that is everyone trying to call out orders at the same time, along with the roars of dragons.

Still. It’s not the Monstrous Nightmare right outside. He stares at the dragon, and the dragon stares right back at him, before it opens up its mouth to spit fire, and Barry is smart enough to slam the door shut before he’s roasted alive by an angry dragon.

“Why’d you open the door?” Lucretia asks, looking over at him from where’s she’s sat at a small table near the center of the room, having dragged up a chair.

“That’s a good question,” says Barry. He’s about to slump against the door, but before he can, he hears the roar of the Nightmare, and a stream of flames is launched at the door. Barry yelps and jumps away from it, very thankful to whoever decided to make the blacksmith more fireproof than the rest of Berk.

“Hey!” someone yells from outside, and Barry sighs, going up to the main front window to see what’s up. Someone’s lured the Nightmare away, or at least, he’s hoping, because he can’t see it outside anymore.

The person who called him isn’t anybody he knows well—they just want their sword sharpened. Which is easy, and it won’t even take that long, just…

Well. Barry’s a good blacksmith, and he does genuinely enjoy inventing new things, not that many of his inventions have been what others might call ‘useful.’ It’s just…not what he thought his life would be, when he was a kid. Granted, everyone as a kid assumed they’d be a big, brave warrior, and everyone wanted to be the first person to find a Night Fury because everyone wants the glory of killing one.

That dream, Barry thinks, sharpening the sword, is very, very far away from how his life turned out. He’s not upset, exactly, just very much aware of how much he isn’t like anyone he grew up with. Not that he actually likes most of the young adults his age, and they all feel exactly the same way towards him, except on the odd days that Edward and Lydia are nice to him, but they’re all warriors. Even the people who are more into baking than fighting _can_ fight—Barry’s pretty sure he’s the only person on Berk who hasn’t ever killed a dragon. Other than like, Angus, but he’s a baby and doesn’t count. And Lucretia hasn’t, either, but that’s out of choice: she’d rather hang out with him in the forge and draw than be out there fighting. And then, most kids haven’t ever killed a dragon, but Barry’s not a kid and it isn’t great on his self-esteem when he’s lumped in with them.

The sword is finished a minute later, and Barry lugs it back over to the woman who gave it to him. She thanks him and charges back out into the fray, where he watches her slice into the wings of a Nadder before it can take off with a sheep. The dragon screeches and lashes out at the woman with its spike-studded tail.

“I’m going out there,” Barry calls, because sitting around sharpening weapons isn’t what he wants to be doing. He glances back to Lucretia, who looks up from her journal.

“And I’ll just tell anyone who passes by looking for their blacksmith to come back later, then,” she says. She ducks when a stray Nadder spike comes flying in through the window, and Barry watches it embed in the back wall. Maybe less walls weren’t a smart blacksmith design, after all. “Not like we need sharp things to fight dragons with.”

“I knew you’d understand,” Barry says, grinning at her, and he bypasses the door to instead just step out of the side.

Outside is a wild chaos. There’s dragons everywhere, for one: a group of three Gronckles ramming themselves into the stone walls of one of their food storage buildings—which is just wheat, in that one, Barry’s not sure what a dragon would want with that—a dark-scaled Nadder that’s tearing shingles off the roofs of various buildings—again, Barry can’t think of a reason for that—and when he looks up, there’s more dragons than he can see, and between all of them, he’s pretty sure they’ve grabbed every single sheep on the island.

Which is, you know. Great. It’s not like Barry needed warm clothes, anyways.

He doesn’t have a plan, and he also doesn’t even have a weapon. But he doesn’t feel like going back into the forge, if only because he knows Lucretia would laugh at him for it, so he presses onwards. He’s sure he’ll find a sword somewhere.

It’s easy enough to twist and turn his way through the warring humans and dragons, narrowly avoiding dragon talons and human steel. He does end up finding a weapon—an ax that he recognizes as Magnus’s, left on the ground. Not the greatest sign, so Barry grabs it and keeps an eye out for Magnus, just in case. Magnus is known for rushing in—Barry is, honestly, a little surprised he’s even lived to his mid-teens.

He makes a sharp turn to avoid a Gronckle, who doesn’t seem to notice him or the ax, instead just smashing right through a nearby house as it keeps flying on. Barry shakes his head. Dragons.

There’s really nothing Barry can help with, is the thing. He has an ax, but he’s never been the best at using them, and besides, almost every dragon he passes is being beaten back by a fellow Viking, or already caught and struggling in its binds. Maybe he should head back, if only to grab the bola launcher he made. Might come in handy, with how many dragons are up in the sky.

“Barry!” someone yells, and Barry turns to see Magnus running for him, much younger, but taller. Barry gets the ax out of the way in time for Magnus to give him a rib-crushing hug without getting himself hurt in the process, and Barry struggles to be put down. Crushed to death by Magnus isn’t how he wants to go. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the forge?” Magnus asks, as Barry hands him back his ax. “Oh, thanks! I was wondering where I dropped this.”

“No problem,” Barry says. “And yes, but I got tired of sharpening weapons and left Lucretia in charge.”

“Lucretia isn’t a blacksmith,” is Magnus’s response to that.

“Yeah, but she’s watched me work enough to mostly know what to do,” Barry says, shrugging. “What’s up with you?” He ducks under a dragon that swoops above the two of them. Magnus swings his ax up, but only manages to graze the dragon’s underbelly. A single pale blue scale falls into Barry’s hair, and he pockets it.

“Babysitting,” Magnus says, and he gestures to the empty air beside him. Barry squints.

“You, uh…” Barry trails off. “I think you lost the kid, bud.”

“I—Angus!” Magnus yells, spinning around. “Well, shit. Can you go find him? And bring him back to the forge and like, lock him somewhere? Maybe then he won’t get lost again.”

“I’m…why do I have to find him?” Barry asks.

“Because I want to fight a dragon, and you can’t?” Magnus says this as though it’s the most obvious truth in the world, and yes, maybe it is, but that doesn’t mean Barry has to like it. Still, he sighs. He’s not too worried about Angus being hurt by a dragon—he’s usually left alone, probably because he’s so tiny no dragon would ever see him as a threat. But he tends to get underfoot, and one accidental swing from a Viking could mean the loss of Angus’s life. Barry doesn’t want that.

“Fine,” he says, “but if you end up killing a dragon, don’t burn it. I’ve always wanted to work with dragon scale but so far I haven’t been able to get anybody to bring me some.” Dragon scales would make some very nice amour, Barry thinks—if he can get the right ones, they’re pretty light, and can also be great for camouflage. Plus, they look neat. For all dragons enjoy absolutely destroying Berk, they're still beautiful. And if he could get his hand on their scales…

“Didn’t Davenport tell you not to go around skinning dead dragons?” Magnus asks, and Barry just shrugs. He’s not _skinning_ them.

“He said to focus on helpful things,” Barry clarifies, “and stronger armor is helpful for everyone.”

It’s a bit of a fib. Barry’s dragon scale idea would take a lot of testing, and a lot of time, but it’s also a thing he’s endlessly fascinated by. And if he maybe wanted originally to use dragon scales to make some, frankly, dangerous wings, Davenport was right on that one being a bit out there. Magnus doesn’t have to know. He’s tired of collecting loose scales off the ground—there’s never enough and they never match.

“Can I be the first one to wear it?” Magnus asks, and Barry nods. “Then sure! Deal!” Magnus agrees, and he gives a cheerful wave as he charges into the fray with a yell.

Barry’s search for Angus doesn’t go to well. Usually, Angus is wherever something interesting is happening, but Barry doesn’t find him near any of the larger fights, or even the smaller fights. Is there something going on? Like, Angus found something interesting, and is checking that out?

Maybe. Barry wanders the village, nearly gets his hair set on fire, puts out a fire on a house when he finds a bucket of water left nearby, and then, finally, out in the field where the sheep are usually kept, he sees Angus, knelt in the center.

“Angus,” Barry says, hurrying over to him, “finally! What are you doing? Magnus told me he was supposed to be watching you.”

“I left Magnus forever ago,” Angus says, sounding distracted. He picks something up off the ground, and turns to face Barry, holding out his hand. In it, he’s got a few black scales. “I think there’s a Night Fury, this time.”

Barry looks around. The grass here is scorched, he notices, and there’s burnt remnants of rope left on the ground. There’s a few more black scales littering the ground, but also some in deep reds, and with the scorched ground…

“It might just be from a Nightmare,” Barry says, “that set itself on fire to get out of the ropes.”

Angus shakes his head. “That scales are different sizes,” he says, “I think there’s a Night Fury here!”

“Well,” Barry says, because Angus does have a tendency to be right about these things, but the raid’s been going on for an hour, and there’s no reason for a Night Fury to show up and not blast anything. “Maybe. But nobody else has heard one, as far as I know, and Night Furies, for all we never see of them, are good at making themselves known. Besides, if there is a Night Fury, you shouldn’t be out here. And can I have those?”

“Dragons don’t shoot at me, sir,” Angus says, but he passes the scales to Barry with a sigh, standing and following Barry as he leads the way back to the forge. Barry takes Angus’s hand so he can’t run off.

“I know,” Barry says. “But we still shouldn’t take any chances. How about I let you sharpen some swords? That way you won’t just have to sit around and do nothing.”

“I guess,” Angus says. The trip back to the blacksmith is quick enough, and Barry pushes open the door, the area loud with the yells of people wanting their weapons sharpened. He shoves Angus over that way—Angus may be ten, but Barry trusts him to be decent enough at this—and goes to see what Lucretia is up to.

“Magnus punched a Nadder,” is Lucretia’s greeting, and she flips a few pages back in her journal, where she has, indeed, drawn just that. It’s sketchy, but despite that, Barry can make out the little grin on Magnus’s face, and the obvious surprise on the dragon, that’s halfway to flying away. “I’m pretty sure he did in in view of me just so I’d draw it.”

“It’s really good,” Barry tells her, and Lucretia smiles. But then that smiles falls into something more confused.

“Why is Angus holding a sword?” she asks, pointing over to where Angus is dragging a sword larger than him over to get it sharpened. Barry shrugs.

“I really don’t want to do my job,” he says, truthfully, and he heads over to grab a bola off the wall—great for tangling and ensnaring dragons. “Angus thinks there’s a Night Fury.” _I’m going to shoot it down,_ he doesn’t need to say, because he’s known Lucretia since she was born, and she’s known him her whole life, so some things she just gets.

“You can’t throw one of those,” Lucretia says, flipping to a blank page and picking up her pencil.

“Neither can you,” Barry shoots back, heading for the back of the room, where he keeps his inventions—out of the way, and also, somewhere Davenport probably won’t find them as quickly.

“Yeah, but I own it.” Barry hears the scratch of pencil against paper. “That’s why I’m in here drawing the Nightmare burning down Magnus’s house.”

That makes Barry look, and Lucretia points, where, faintly, Barry can indeed make out the flames that were once Magnus’s house. The third time that’s happened in a month, then. Pretty good, considering.

“Fine,” Barry says. Sometimes, he’s glad to has a sister-figure that doesn’t feel the need to lie and spare his feelings. This, however, isn’t one of those times. “Maybe my aim is terrible—”

“It’s like you can’t even see!” Lucretia says, and Barry glares at her, unimpressed, through the frames of his glasses. Lucretia giggles and returns to her drawing.

“—but I have this machine to do it for me!” He rolls his bola-thrower out, and gives it a proud pat. And then remembers that he already loaded it and he forgot to fix the calibration, as it springs and launches a bola out the window, narrowly missing Angus, who’s dragging the newly-sharpened sword over to the window. Angus doesn’t even flinch, which probably means he spends too much time in the forge.

“What the fuck!” someone yells from outside. Barry winces. And then goes to fiddle with the calibration, so it doesn’t happen again.

Lucretia, however, just nods. “Well, when you finally beef it, I’ll be sure to make your death look very noble for all those future generations.”

Barry stands, gives the launcher a pat. It doesn’t fire, which he counts as a success. He ruffles Lucretia’s hair before she goes, and she swats at him, shoving him away. Barry grabs his launcher, and heads for the door, rolling it in front of him.

“Don’t die out there!” Lucretia yells, as he pushes open the door.

“Fuck you too!” Barry calls, sweetly. He hears Lucretia’s laughter as the door swings shut behind him.

There’s too much going on, out here, for him to get any good aim, so Barry rushes through the crowds of people, ignoring the yells he gets when he nearly crashes into someone. His goal is _up,_ and he climbs one of the ramps leading up to the cliffsides, away from people, just looking at the night sky. He drops the launcher, checks that it’s loaded, and pulls back the trigger, ready to release it and fire. He peers through the tiny ring of wire acting as an aim, and searches the sky.

“C’mon,” he says, “there were so many dragons down there, something has to come up here.”

He’s hoping for a Night Fury. He’s honestly expecting something common, like a Nadder, but he’d be pretty happy with whatever. He just wants to hit _something,_ to show that yes, Barry, that kid who missed dragon training because of various ailments, poor eyesight and breathing and all, did, finally, decades late, kill a dragon.

Well. Shoot down a dragon, then kill it. Same difference.

The sky, though, is empty—no dragons in sight. And it’s dead silent, too. The raid must be dying down. He keeps an eye out, staring out at the thousands of little stars, and sees…they’re being blotted out? There’s a dark shape, a moving shape, and it’s—

Night Furies are named as such because they’re the color of the night.

Barry tenses, keeping his eyes on where he thinks the Night Fury might be. He can’t shoot, not yet. It’s too hard to keep the moving blob in his vision, because one blink and he can’t see it. But then he hears the tell-tale whistle of a dive, and an explosion of fire blasts against one of the carved rock formations, illuminates the sky and the Night Fury, soaring above its fire.

Barry watches, and takes aim, and fires. The recoil is enough to knock him backwards, but he grabs his glasses before they can fall off, and watches as a dark shapes plummet into the forest on the far side of the island.

“I did it!” he cheers, because holy shit! He shot down a _Night Fury!_ Nobody’s ever even seen one, up close, and he knows it landed somewhere in the forest—if he can bring back the heart of a Night Fury, that’s all his problems solved! “Hear that, world? Barry Bluejeans, first Viking to ever shoot down a Night Fury!”

His words echo off the empty cliffsides. “Ah,” he says, and like that, there goes his joy. “Of course nobody saw.”

And then, because his luck is awful, he hears a roar, and a Monstrous Nightmare sets down on the cliffside before him, already on fire. Barry hardly has time to blink before the dragon is spewing flames at him, and he runs, leaving his bola launcher for dead. The dragon charges after him—Barry can hear the clack of its talons against rock, and he skids down the ramps in a desperate attempt to find either a weapon or someone with a weapon, because he’s not fucking dying today.

The dragon launches a jet of flames at him, and Barry gives up running and just jumps off the ramp, remembering that he’s supposed to like, tuck and roll, but not how to do it, so he lands heavy on the ground. His ankle feels like it’s on fire, and every single part of him is screaming that he’s not built for this, and his breaths come in wheezes. The dragon launches itself into the air and dives down for him, because of course it does.

This isn’t Barry’s day. He dodges the dragon as it lands on the ground with a thud, and charges back for the village. He can see the burning fire of one of the large torches, and aims for that, because it’s protection and so far, the Nightmare seems to have endless fire. He ducks another flame, pats out the fire on his hair and only burns his hand a little bit in the process, and then he’s made it to the torch. He hides behind it, breathing heavy and pressing his back to the wood.

The Nightmare’s claws click as it prowls around the torch. Barry creeps backwards—if he can somehow make a run for it, maybe he could find someone to help.

That, however, doesn’t happen. His back hits something warm, and he turns, slowly, to see the dragon’s yellow eyes boring right into his own.

Fuck.

Barry runs screaming as the dragon nearly torches him alive, but instead, just sets the wood itself on fire, and then smashes through it with its giant body, sending the entire torch crashing into the water, smashing through the docks. Barry winces, but keeps running, because the other option is death and he’s said before that he’s not looking into that one. Part of him wishes his bola launcher wasn’t a sacrifice as he tried to escape, but also, he doubts it would come in handy, right now.

He nearly crashes into someone, and does trip, and scrambles backwards to see who his possible savior is.

And. Well.

Davenport is not Barry’s dad. He’s also not _not_ Barry’s dad. He’s the chief of Berk, which means technically Barry could be chief after him, not that he would ever be accepted. Davenport’s one of the best dragon-fighters despite his small size, and it also probably the worst person to rescue Barry because of the aforementioned _kinda dad_ thing.

The Nightmare notices Davenport too, and roars, a loud, angry sound. Its scales spark but don’t ignite, and when it opens its mouth to breath fire, one a few drops come out.

Davenport grins. Barry resists the urge to whine about how unfair this whole situation is.

The dragon, being much, much less dangerous without the fire, tries to snap at Davenport, but he’s much faster and is out of the way before the dragon can even touch him. He climbs up the side of the dragon, using the various ridges and footholds that Davenport swears exist but Barry’s never been able to do, and from the back of the dragon, pulls out a gleaming-sharp dagger.

The Nightmare roars, twisting its head around to try and bite Davenport, but he just ducks, and stabs the dagger into the roof of the Nightmare’s mouth. It roars, but this is a pained roar, and flails its wings as Davenport tugs the dagger out the soft flesh of its jaw. Barry winces, because that’s got to hurt.

The dragon tires to fly away, but before it can, Davenport’s sliced into its wing, and there’s no escaping. Even the dragon seems to know that, as it roars but doesn’t fight when Davenport slides off, and a few onlookers run over to toss nets over the dragon.

“Hey, Dav,” Barry greets weakly, when Davenport comes over. He offers a hand to pull Barry up. “I’m, uh, sorry about that one.”

“The docks are still on fire,” Davenport says, and Barry looks over to see that oh, they are.

“I shot down a Night Fury,” Barry says, barely managing to get the whole sentence out before Davenport is dragging him the direction of their home. “Hey! I’m not lying about that one! I really did! I mean, nobody was around to see it, but—”

“You left Angus in charge of the forge,” Davenport says, and oh, he’s upset. That’s…not great. Really helping to just ruin Barry’s good mood from shooting down his first dragon. He turns to glare at Barry, and even though Barry’s taller than him, he still cowers under that weight of it.

“Angus knows what to do,” Barry says.

“Angus is ten years old,” Davenport says, and he sighs. “Barry, you’re an adult. You have your job. You should know better, than to go running into a fight you can’t win and endangering lives in the process.”

Barry flushes. He’s mad and upset and embarrassed, and he really hates that they have an audience for this. He catches sight of Lucretia, watching from the sidelines, and she gives him a sympathetic frown, but doesn’t come to rescue him. Barry can’t even blame her, because Davenport is her kinda-dad, too.

It’s just. Lucretia knows what she wants to do with her life. She doesn’t care that she’s not the best at fighting dragons—she’s glad to draw them and do her own thing. Barry isn’t. He likes being blacksmith, yes, but it wasn’t ever the life he chose for himself. He’s not like anybody, he’s not a bloodthirsty dragon-killer because he hasn’t killed a single one, and nobody is going to believe him about the Night Fury unless he has proof. Barry’s…

Sometimes he feels like he missed some Viking rite-of-passage while he was holed up in his room because his lungs couldn’t work right. Like everyone else went and became great, and he missed it. His only friends are all more than ten years younger than him. Davenport sees him as a burden, more than anything else.

“There’s a whole village to feed,” Davenport says, breaking Barry out of his thoughts. “And the dragons have carried off nearly all the sheep, and they’ve destroyed half the food stores. They’re raiding more than ever. And you’re just…making a mess of things.”

“Right,” Barry says. He pulls away from Davenport and heads up the steps, into their house. He’s heard all this before.

“Barry,” Davenport says, and Barry stops, turning to face him. “We can talk more tomorrow. I have a meeting to plan, for the morning. Edward and Lydia want to try and find the nest, again, and they might be awful people, but they are good fighters, so I don’t want them to just die. You can come, if you’d like.”

“Nah,” Barry says. He knows how all those meetings end. He’s seen people go off and never come back. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”

He ignores Davenport as he heads into his room, slamming the door because he’s mad and feels like he has a right to. His walls are covered with blueprints and his desk full of papers with half-scribbled ideas. Barry wishes he was a dragon, if only so he could set all of them on fire.

He can’t find a Night Fury in the dark. But he can come morning, and if everyone is going to be in a meeting, that’s the best shot he has to sneak away unnoticed—not that, he notes dryly, anyone would notice him gone unless they happened to want a weapon fixed.

He lays awake in bed, staring up at the wooden ceiling, for a long, long time. At one point, he hears Lucretia come in—her room is right next to his, and they’ve never been able to fix the creak in her door.

He’ll find that Night Fury. He’ll prove himself yet.

Barry doesn’t sleep well, that night.

* * *

Barry stumbles over yet another rock as he treks through the forest, and he growls under his breath. It’s been hours, and still, no dragon. He knows where the dragon landed, he saw it falling into this part of the woods, but of course, he’s the one person who manages to lose an entire dragon. He glares at the map in his journal, and scribbles on another _x._

“Find the Night Fury, I said,” he mutters to himself, scribbling dark, angry lines of the map, “it’ll be easy, it’s a big, black dragon, I said.” His pencil snaps, and Barry sighs, shutting his journal and stuffing both that and the two halves of his pencil into his pocket. “Well. I sure as hell don’t see a dragon, so what does that mean? Did I hallucinate the whole thing?”

With his luck, he probably did, or what he saw falling into the forest wasn’t, actually, a dragon, but like, a big bird or something. Barry sighs and is about ready to just give up and go back home, resign himself to an eternity of never being really _happy_ as a blacksmith, when he sees a tree.

Well. He’s seen lots of trees. But this tree, this one is shredded through, half of it tilted towards the ground like it’s been peeled off, but someone gave up and stopped just before finishing. The wood isn’t smooth, but rough and jagged, like the spikes on a Nadder’s tail.

Maybe he wasn’t hallucinating, after all.

Barry ducks underneath the tree, creeping forwards. He doesn’t know if the dragon is still there, or if it's escaped and is waiting to attack him. He climbs a small hill, and sees…

The Night Fury isn’t solid black, like he thought it was. It’s black, mostly, yes, but where the sun hits its side through the trees, its got a gleam of deep red to its scales. It also has a sort of faintly-there dappled pattern across its sides, like blobs of a color just barely different from the main red-black of its scales. It’s not dead, Barry can hear its labored breathing even from here, but it’s trapped. One wing is tented above it, and the bola is tangled around that wing, pinning the other against the ground, where it looks almost bent backwards. The ropes are tight around its tail, and both of its hind legs are pinned tightly to its body. The front legs are, too, but a bit less so.

Barry crouches back behind the hill, so the dragon can’t see him, and tries to control his breathing. He did it. He did it! He really…he shot down a Night Fury, and he’s going to kill it and he’s going to fix everything!

“Yes,” he whispers to himself, unable to keep the glee out of the word. He stands back up, climbs fully over the hill, and pulls out his dagger where it’s stored in a sheath attached to his belt. The dragon heaves in deep breaths, but otherwise doesn’t move.

Barry steps closer. The dragon doesn’t attack him. It’s not as big as he was expecting. If this dragon could stand, he doubts it would be taller than him. Still tall, yes, but when he heard stories about Night Furies, he was expecting something massive, something spiked and evil. This dragon is…sleek. It doesn’t look like it was built for fighting, but for flying.

Maybe that’s why they don’t see any Night Furies. Maybe they all flew away.

It doesn’t matter. Barry looks down at the dragon, and holds out his dagger, both hands wrapped tightly around the hilt. “I’m going to kill you,” he tells the dragon. He’s not sure why. “I’m going to cut out your heart, and my life is going to get better. So, thanks for that.”

His hands are shaking. Barry steadies himself. The dragon, finally, opens its eyes, and they’re green, tinted barely with a bit of gold. It looks like it’s in pain. The nubs on its head—ears, maybe?—twitch, and it meets his eyes.

There’s. There’s something almost intelligent, in those eyes. Its pupils are thin slits, but it looks down at the knife held in his hands, and lets out a loud, creaky rumble. Another heavy breath, before it drops its head to the ground, eyes closed.

Like it’s accepting its own death.

Barry shakes himself. “It’s just a dragon,” he mutters, because it is, it’s a dragon and it might be big and terrifying, but he doesn’t feel bad when a sheep is killed for food, so why should he feel so bad about this? There’s a pit in his chest as he watches the dragon, not even trying to defend itself. It’s a little bit hard for him to breathe, but that might be something unrelated.

“I have to do this,” he tells himself, “it’s just an animal, it doesn’t know what’s going on, it’s…”

The dagger trembles in his hands. The dragon’s breathing continues to come, labored. The ears on its head, or, what Barry assumes are ears, because it’s got four of them atop its head and two on each side, twitch whenever Barry speaks, like it’s listening.

Barry…

He can’t do this. His hand, holding the knife up above his head, goes limp, and he drops them, the knife hanging weak in his grasp.

“I did this,” he whispers, and he can’t take his eyes off the dragon. It’s beautiful, dappled in the sunlight with spots that glint red, like fire but deeper.

He could run away. He could run back home, and leave the Night Fury for someone else to find. He’s sure something would stumble across it, eventually.

But that’s…it’s his fault it’s trapped here. And…

Barry takes a deep breath, and kneels down beside the dragon, gripping the knife again. He cuts into the first of the ropes—a quick motion, and the rope is in two, and it falls to the ground. The next rope, and they start to slacken around the dragon, its paws twitching. He doesn’t dare look at its face.

The final rope is cut, and the dragon reacts in an instant, leaping at him with a roar. Barry’s too startled to keep a grip on the knife, and the dragon bowls him backwards, so he’s staring up at it, claws digging into the ground on either side of his neck. His breaths come quick and terrified, and the Night Fury looms over him.

It’s breathing steadily. It stares at him, green eyes with narrowed pupils, all of those flaps on its head flared out wide, like it’s trying to scare him.

Barry doesn’t dare to move.

The dragon opens its mouth, and Barry nearly flinches, bracing himself to die. At least death by blast of fire in the face should be pretty quick. The dragon breathes in…

…and roars, loud, rearing up only to slam both paws back down on either side of him, wings spread wide. It roars, and its breath smells strongly of fish, but even as it curls its claws into the dirt beside his neck, not once does it claw him. It tosses its head when it’s done and glares at him one last time, eyes narrowed and upset. Or, what Barry would call upset—it’s a dragon, so who the fuck knows, really.

It spins around and takes off with a beat of its wings into the sky, flying lopsided and crashing into a raised outcrop of stone. It roars again, as it crashes into trees, until it disappears entirely, and all Barry has left of the dragon are the memories in his head.

Barry lays there, on his back, staring up at the trees and the sun above him, and tries to remember how to breathe.

He doesn’t make it back home until late that night, once he’s managed to figure out how to walk with his legs wobbly. He can’t get the Night Fury out of his mind, no matter how hard he tries. It let him live. He wasn’t able to kill it. His brain is still fuzz when he pushes open the door to his house, noting that there’s a candle lighting the room in its flickering shadows.

The dagger is a heavy weight at his side. He half-stumbles over to the stairs, leaning against the wall so he doesn’t just fall over and collapse again. He will, once he’s in his room, but he’d like to not crash onto the wooden floor. He wants to sleep forever, so he doesn’t have to ever think about this again.

“Barry,” says Davenport, ruining every single one of his plans. Barry stops halfway up the stairs, and looks down, where Davenport is, indeed, the one who’s lit the candle. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, as though he was waiting for Barry. “I wanted to say sorry,” he says.

Barry’s not sure he knows how to speak. He slowly makes his way back down the stairs, and thumps down in a chair opposite Davenport.

“I know you’ve always wanted to be able to kill dragons like the rest of us,” Davenport starts, and it startles Barry so badly he nearly falls out of his chair. Luckily, he keeps enough of a grip on himself that Davenport doesn’t notice. “And it’s not your fault you missed dragon training as a kid. And I’ve realized…that’s not fair, to you. Everyone else learned, but you never did. So…I’ve thought about it, and I’m going to be starting it up again, with the teenagers. And since Lucretia will be doing it…I thought it fair that you should finally get some training, too.”

“I can’t kill dragons,” Barry says, because that’s all he can think to say. If this happened two days ago, it’d be a dream come true. But now—he couldn’t kill that Night Fury, and he doesn’t think he can kill any other dragons, not now. Not after that one.

“I’m sorry,” Davenport says. “I know that’s what I’ve been telling you most of your life, but that’s on me.”

“No,” Barry says, shaking his head, “no, Dav, I mean that literally. I _can’t_ kill dragons. I won’t.”

“Well, we try not to kill the training dragons,” Davenport says, “it’s always a hassle to try and trap more. It’ll be good for you to get some experience.” He looks at Barry, and he’s determined. Barry’s…he’s not going to be getting out of this one, is he? It’s some attempt for Davenport to apologize, and that would be cool, if it wasn’t the one thing Barry can’t do!

“What if I’m just a blacksmith forever,” Barry tries despite that. He still doesn’t want that, but he also doesn’t want to kill dragons, which doesn’t really leave him many options. He’s not sure what he wants. “What if—”

“You’ll do fine, Barry,” Davenport says, and he stands, coming over to Barry to clap a hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

“…right,” Barry says in a near-whisper. Davenport wouldn’t be saying that if he knew what Barry did in the woods. “Right. When do we start?”

“Tomorrow,” Davenport says, and Barry swallows. “Bright and early.”

So, he’s until sunrise to figure out how the fuck he’s going to get out of dragon training. Davenport smiles at him, and Barry offers a weak one of his own.

He’s screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my desire to drop everything and write the sequel to this rises every single day. this is somehow my favorite au and also thing i've ever written? i have simple tastes and those are: dragons and taz. if it wasn't obvious this story is written entirely for me. 
> 
> for ages, because i don't ever say it outright, barry is like...somewhere in his 30s, mags and luce are older teens (15-16), dav is like....at least 20 years older than barry, and lup is somewhere in her 20s. dragon aging varies a bit between species, but for night furies, they're adults at like, ten. 
> 
> so yeah! next chapter in a week.


	3. lup gets stuck in a ravine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup's shot down by a human who then proceeds to not do the normal thing and kill her. It's...weird.

Lup goes down in a forest, every limb burning as though she’s been set on fire from the inside. Her tail is the worst offender, but her left wing is also up there. She tries to struggle to her paws, but they’re stuck tight against her sides. She tries to free her wing, but it’s bent under her and she can’t get it lose. She tries to twist her head, to blast at whatever’s got her trapped, but that doesn’t work, either.

She breathes heavy, and looks around as best she can.

Whatever hit her…it’s tangled all around her, and she can already feel it pressing tight into her scales. One of her wings is stuck tented over her, and there’s a burn in the muscle that she knows is going to get worse the longer she’s not able to move it.

Which might be a while, because Lup has no way of getting out of this one. She can’t set herself on fire like a flaming-dragon might, and she doesn’t have a second head to twist and bite her bindings off of her. She can’t even turn the head she does have to look up at the sky and roar when she sees another dragon, to call for their help—she’s stuck until the human that shot her down comes and kills her.

Lup, despite trying not to, whimpers. She very much doesn’t want to die. She sings out looking-sounds, and finds trees, rocks, and no dragons. Her shrieks are dwarfed by the trees towering over her, and if anybody hears them, nobody comes to help her.

Neither, though, does the human that shot her down. Lup waits for it, waits for something sharp to cut deep into her, to bleed her and chop her wings so she can’t flee, but nothing comes. The sun rises, weak first, but then a bit brighter, filtered through the leaves, and there’s still no human. Just her, just birdsong, just being trapped and unable to do anything but wait.

Lup’s not sure how long she lays there for, but then, breaking the silence, she hears human-noises, and her ear-flaps prick. Is that…it must be whoever shot her down, come to finish the job. Lup closes her eyes, wonders if she can do anything to get out of this one. Maybe…

She hears footsteps, after a minute, and then a hushed noise like _surprise._ The human found her, then. She cracks open an eye, braces herself for an attack, only to find the human staring at her, peeking over from behind the dip of a tiny hill. It’s still, for a very, very long time. Is this…not the human who shot her down, then? Somebody else? Lup isn’t sure who shot her down, but considering nobody came to her, it has to be this human, right? Why else would a human come across her?

When the human finally leaves its hiding place to approach her, Lup notices that it’s shaking, faintly, but there’s also something like pride to its stance. Definitely the human that shot her down, then. It’s holding a dagger, a basic human-weapon. Like claws, but worse, because it can be taken. Lup watches the human carefully. It’s making noises, though Lup isn’t sure why. Humans are weird, like that. They chatter like birds.

But the message it sends is clear, despite the trembling. It holds the dagger up above itself, aimed down at her. This is…

This is it. Lup stares at the human, and its dark eyes meet her own. Humans mostly look the same, various pelt and scale colors—though she’s not sure they’re scales, not when she’s looking now—but Lup’s never been this close to one. Its eyes are fascinating, though. It has deep brown eyes, but they aren’t a solid brown. They’re a changing brown, almost, lighter around the edges, and darker in the middle. The pupil in the center of the eye is a circle, unlike her own.

And there’s…something going on, in those eyes. They aren’t the blank eyes of a fish, unseeing and uncaring, but they’re…there’s a life to them, almost. Which is weird, because humans aren’t much different from a fish. Sure, they’re bigger, and they’re hunters, but they aren’t much smarter.

This human, though.

Lup sighs. The human steadies the knife.

She lets out a final whine—at least when she’s dead, she won’t have to worry about the ache in her wing—and thumps her head against the ground, her eyes fluttering closed.

And the pain never comes. She waits, and she hears something—the human is…doing something? She cracks open an eye, and sees the human cutting away at her bindings.

It’s. The human is freeing her? But it’s the one who trapped her? The tightness around her slackens, and the second she’s freed, Lup stretches her wings and springs to her paws, turning to the human and pouncing as though it’s nothing more than something bothersome in her nest, like a mouse. It goes down easily, and she presses her claws into the ground around its neck, to make sure it won’t try to escape.

Lup stares at the human trapped below her. It smells terrified, that’s for sure, and it’s tensed below her, breaths heavy and panicked. It’s not good at hiding its emotions. Lup could blast it, and be done with it and this whole island. She could kill the human, throw herself into the sky, and be home to Taako teasing her for being trapped before the sun sets.

But Lup thought this human was going to kill her, moments before. She was ready for it. And despite the human’s obvious fear, it’s accepted its death, too.

Lup makes a decision.

She roars, she screams, and she slams her paws into the earth on either side of the human so she can curl her claws into something, raging and burning with everything inside of her, wings flared to make her bigger, tail slapping against the ground. She roars until she can’t roar anymore, until she just wants to whimper and find Taako and maybe even act like she’s a hatchling again and hide under her dad like she used to when the king got too aggressive and she was too little to fly. She roars until her throat is sore with it, and then she turns tail and flees into the sky.

The human won’t follow her. Humans are stupid, but this one freed her, and its eyes held the same fear she felt, and that…that means something. Maybe this human is smarter. It sure looked that way, when she met its eyes. Her wings swirl the wind up underneath her when she flaps, but she can’t find her balance, in the air. She smashes into the side of small cliffside, overlooking the floor of the forest under her that’s quickly approaching, and she roars again.

“Stupid air!” she snarls. Everything is wrong, the air and the way she cuts through it is wrong. She tries to turn and finds that she can’t, so she smashes face-first into a tree and her wings beat uselessly as she falls to the ground. She snarls, jumping back up, and her wings catch the wind just fine. She manages to get forwards a little, but she can’t gain any height.

Another growl, another failed turn to get out of the way of some rocks, and she’s plummeting again for the ground. She lands heavy on her wing, as it bends and crumples underneath her. Lup whines and stumbles to her paws, stretching out her wing to see what’s wrong with it.

It’s not broken, thankfully. It’s sore, but as long as she rests, it’ll get better. It should still get her to the nest. Though…

That doesn’t explain why she couldn’t turn, why everything was off, is still off. She slumps back to the ground, thumping her head onto the grass, and tucks her tail around her nose. She wants her brother. She wants her father. She wants the rest of her flock.

She blinks, and something heavy settles into her throat, like it’s trying to tug her down and down and down. When she looks up at the sky, it’s bright and blue and empty. She sings soft looking-sounds, and gets back nothing about dragons. She roars and screams for Taako, and he doesn’t answer her.

He must’ve gone back, it hits her. She was lying there, stuck for nearly a whole night—Taako went off without her. He thought they’d be meeting back up at their nest. And once he gets back, he can’t…

He’ll be trapped there by the king until he sends them out on another raid, and who knows when that will be. Winter is coming. There’s no food left on this island. It could be all of winter before Taako is sent back here.

So Lup has to get to him. Fuck whatever is wrong, she can get home and then deal with things. She’s about to stand, but then she squints.

Something is wrong with her tail. It’s tucked up to hide her face, but it’s not right. She looks at it, at her tailfin hiding her face, at the tiny stubs of rounded spikes that end just before the tip of her tail where her tailfins start, at her—

There’s only one tailfin.

Lup scrambles to her paws, trapping her tail under them to check. Surely, surely she made a mistake, because if she only has one tailfin she won’t be balanced, she can’t get high enough, she can’t fly, she can’t—

She couldn’t make sharp turns. She couldn’t gain height.

Lup stares at her tail. On one side, is her tailfin, glinting deep red in the full shine of the sun. On the other side is nothing. Tailfin, nothing, tailfin, nothing, and Lup is stuck grounded. Tailfins don’t grow back. Taako won’t come for her until winter, unless he manages to break free of the king’s control, and even then, they’re the same size—he won’t be able to carry her over the ocean and back to their nest. And even if he could, Lup would surely just be eaten, unable to fly away from the king.

Lup is a dead dragon walking. The human should’ve done her a favor and just killed her then and there. All it did was prolong her death.

Heaving in a shaky breath, Lup takes stock of her surroundings. She’s fallen into a ravine, stone walls on all sides. The ravine itself isn’t that bad, there’s some trees and a little pond so she’ll have food for a while. She pricks her ears and waits, but all she hears is birdsong—so she’s not near any humans. There’s a chance she might not be found, at least by them.

This is where she’s going to die.

Lup snarls. No. She’s not going to die here. She’s Lup, and she’s going to get out. She leaps into the air with a furious growl, tries and tries to get high enough to clear the edge of her cage, and gets nowhere. She can’t get high enough. She tries a running start, and that does nothing but send her smashing into the side of the rock walls. She tries climbing the walls, but her claws scrabble uselessly against the sides, and she falls back to the ground.

She flames and rages, sending shot after shot of blasting-fire against the walls, onto the ground, into the water. She flames until she learns that she does, in fact, run out of fire, but that’s after half a day of angry flaming, so she doubts she’ll ever hit it again. She slumps to the ground as the sun sets, ear-flaps pinned flat against her head, tucked into as tight a ball as she can get.

She’s a dead dragon. She’s a free dragon.

Here, her head is clear in a way it hasn’t been for a very, very long time. Back at her nest, there was a constant buzzing in her brain, letting her know that no, she wasn’t always the one in control. It was the buzz, and also a mix of her own fear, that made her give food to the king, even when she and Taako were starving. It was the buzz that persisted even in her sleep, in her dreams, even when she went out on raids, telling her to _come back, come back._ A buzz that reminded her that she couldn’t just grab her brother and fly to the edge of the world.

But she doesn’t hear that, here. It hits her as she lays there in a ball. She’s heard the king here before, but that was during raids—without a raid, she doubts he has any reason to focus his attention here. She’s free of him.

She’s going to die free. She’s also going to die without her brother, so it’s not really worth it.

Lup doesn’t sleep well. She rolls around, feels rocks digging into her sides, at one point, wakes up because she’s managed to roll her way into the pond. She swims out, her wings dragging as she shakes herself. She’s hungry. She doesn’t want to be here. She tries, again, to escape, but after a few more attempts of nothing, gives up with a sigh. Her wings are sore, and her heart is sore. She’ll give it a little while before trying again.

She settles down at the edge of the pond, watches for any fish. It’s not how she likes to hunt—she prefers to dive into the ocean and come out with a mouthful of fish. But she can’t fly, and she isn’t at the ocean, so she waits. Fish flit by, and she tries to snap them up, but misses every time.

Is this what happened to her old nest-sitter, Carey? Did she get trapped on some island, far away from home, and die alone? Lup hopes not. Lup loved Carey—sure, she wasn’t that much older than her or Taako, and she was very much a slightly bigger hatchling watching smaller ones, but Lup enjoyed her. She remembers games of chase, games of hiding. Of huddled beside Taako, both of them tucked as best as they could manage under Carey’s wings, while the king roared and the adults tried to escape being eaten.

He usually didn’t eat the hatchlings.

Lup darts a paw into the pond, and spears a fish on one claw. She swallows it in a single bite. It’s barely big enough for a hatchling.

How are her younger siblings, anyways? Lup rolls onto her back, staring up at the dark of the sky, moon and stars hidden behind the clouds. She hasn’t seen her dad much, in a while, but that was to be expected. He’s got Mavis and Mookie to look after. Lup visited when she could, brought food when she could. It wasn’t ever enough, but her younger siblings were always happy to see her, and Lup is always up to collapse in her dad’s nest and just sleep. She loves her nest with Taako, yes, but he spends time with Kravitz, now. Lup’s a lot of things and ‘unable to cope with loneliness’ is probably one of them.

She’s glad Taako cares about Kravitz. He’ll have someone to go to when he realizes she’s never coming back. She misses him, yes, she’s been missing him since he told her he was going to start impressing Kravitz, and maybe part of her thought a love like that sounded interesting, but she’s never been jealous of him. Taako deserves everything good in the world.

Lup wants her brother. She turns her gaze to the rocky cliffs around her, flexes her wings. If she can get out of here, she can swim back to her island. She knows she can. Sure, she’s not really built to swim for days on end, but for Taako, she’d do anything. And she wants to be back home, back with her brother, stretched out in their nest, talking quietly while the king screams as though they’re the only two dragons in the world.

She throws herself into the air, and roars. She climbs the single tree in her cage, tries jumping off of that. She scratches and scrambles at the walls, and gets herself nothing for her troubles. She tries until her claws are stubs and her wings are too sore for her to even fold them up, until she can’t get herself to move. She tries until she collapses onto the ground, breathing heavy, and realizes that there’s no getting out of this.

She paces, around and around and around, ignoring everything burning. She spreads her wings as through she’s going to leap, and stands like that, before dropping her wings and resuming her pacing. She circles her cage until she can’t walk anymore, and she thumps down, licking at her foreleg until she’s rubbed the area raw, the ground around her littered with shed scales, and the scales of her leg so thin it hurts to put weight on it.

There’s nothing for her to do. Lup wants _out,_ she’d take anything at this point. She can’t fly, she can’t escape, and she hates it. She’s not born for the ground! The ground is death to a dragon! She wants to feel the wind, feel it buffet her wings as she fights her way through a storm, diving and twirling and bumping against her brother, wild and free and in the sky, where she was always born to be. She wants to go and go and _go_ , she wants to fly until she finds the edge of the world. She wants to fly until there’s nothing left, until there’s just darkness, until she’s found everything there ever is to find. She wants to leap into the air and let it settle around her like a purr, a gentle, rumbling _home._

Her tail beats against the ground as she fans her single tailfin in-out, in-out. Even if she could get out of this ravine, even if Taako finds her, even if she ever makes it back to her nest, even if this or that, she’d never fly again. Her tailfin isn’t coming back. A human shot her down, and it must’ve been torn off.

The human that shot her down, the human that spared her life, the human whose life she spared. She’s never thought so much about a human, about the future. Humans were nothing but annoyances, and the future was just a vague blob on the horizon, something she’d face with Taako by her side.

But now she’s stuck on an island of humans. And her future won’t ever be what she wants it to be.

Around and around, she paces. In and out, her tailfin fans. Up and up, she fails to reach.

Lup scrambles against rock walls, and flaps until she can’t anymore, and tears out her own scales. Her life is this and this and this, and it won’t ever change until she dies. She knows this. She hates this. She’s dying and she’s free and she’s never going to see her brother again.

And then, sometime later, as she fails to fish—she lost track of time the moment she fell into this ravine—Lup hears something clatter against the rocks, and when she lifts her head, it’s to see the human that spared her life, sitting on a tall rock and watching her, frozen like Taako might when Lup catches him doing something he shouldn’t.

Lup narrows her eyes, tilts her head, and watches back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've started outlining the sequel to this and like. i could not be more excited this is my favorite niche au i've ever written
> 
> anyways, next chapter in a week!


	4. barry's second near-death experience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragon training starts! And as Barry quickly learns, he'd take the Night Fury over this.

When Barry comes downstairs the next morning, he sees both Lucretia and Magnus banging around in the kitchen. Well, Magnus is—he’s humming as he slaps his hand against the wooden table. Lucretia is pouring herself a glass of milk, and Barry blinks.

“I thought the dragons killed all our cows,” he says.

“Hmm?” Lucretia looks over at him. “Oh, no, there’s a few left, that, uh, what’s her name…well, the woman who lives near the ocean, she’s got some cows living in her house, still.”

“Huh,” Barry says. He hasn’t really missed milk, since he’s gotten sick every single time he’s drunk it, but it’s good to know he could theoretically drink some if he needed an excuse to get out of doing something. Actually…

Or, maybe not. He does want to go see if he can find the Night Fury, again. It was flying lopsided—he’s curious if it managed to get off the island. He freed it, and now…well, he just wants to make sure it gets away okay.

“Is Dav home?” he asks. “And Magnus, why are you hitting the table?”

“He’s not,” Lucretia says, as Magnus says, “sometimes you just have to make noise.”

“That’s fair,” Barry tells Magnus. If Davenport isn’t here, then he must be setting up the ring for training, which… “Shit!”

“What?” Lucretia asks.

“Need to clear something up with Dav,” he says. Last night, while not sleeping, he came up with an idea. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to fully get out of dragon training, because he can’t articulate why he doesn’t want to without explaining that he let a Night Fury go free, but if he can get out of it partway, maybe that’ll work well enough. “I’ll see you both at dragon training?”

“You’re gonna be in dragon training with us?” Magnus asks, hopping up. “Barry! That’s so cool! But wait, you’re like, way older than us, how does that work?”

“Hopefully I’ll be helping out,” Barry says, heading for the door. He’s got about half a plan in his head, but he’s pretty confident. He had half a plan when he found a Night Fury, and he survived that, so everything else should be easy compared to that. Should be. Actually, now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t think he’s ever telling Davenport, or anybody, about freeing a Night Fury, so maybe that was easier than this is going to be. It's not like the dragon is going to remind him of all the mistakes he made years down the road. 

“Are you not going to eat?” Lucretia calls after him. “We have stale bread!”

“I’m good!” Barry yells back, and closes the door behind him. It’s early, outside, most people still asleep, and the well-worn paths are empty as Barry makes his way down to the training ring. Considering how loud dragons are, he can’t imagine anybody is going to be happy when they’re woken by roaring dragons while teenagers try to fight them.

Barry, of course, won’t be fighting them. If Davenport won’t let him help, he’s just going to go ahead and drink a whole bottle of milk, and at least give himself some more time to think of a better plan.

The gate that makes up the entrance to the ring is propped open when Barry comes down, so he enters, seeing Davenport setting out racks of shields. “Uh, hey,” Barry calls, and looks over to one of the doors the dragons are kept locked behind, that’s rattling as though the dragon inside is repeatedly banging itself against the door. “What’s up with that?”

“Hi, Barry,” Davenport says, and he follows Barry’s gaze to the door. There are a few extra chains keeping it bolted shut. “Ah. That’s our newest dragon, it’s…well. It’s a surprise. Whoever does the best in dragon training wins the honor of killing their first dragon, and the specific dragon they’ll kill is locked up in there.

_Not doing that, then,_ Barry thinks. Aloud, he says, “so, I’ve been thinking about this whole ‘me being in dragon training’ thing.”

“What about it?” Davenport asks. “Barry, I hope you know…it might feel like you can’t kill a dragon, but I promise, you’ll learn how. I mean, when I was younger, everyone I knew thought I was too small to be taking on dragons. And now I’m chief, so.” Davenport shrugs. “What I’m saying is that I believe in you.”

Barry shuffles his feet. “Sure,” he says, because it’s easier to just go along with this. “I was wondering…rather than being a student, could I just…help you out? Like, an assistant? I’m sure this’ll be easier with two people, right?”

Davenport laughs, coming over to Barry and handing him an ax that was for some reason left on the floor. Barry, not sure what he’s supposed to do, takes it. “You don’t want to be embarrassed, huh?” he asks. “Being the only adult in a class of teens—I get it. Officially, you’re my assistant, but you can still participate, okay? Don’t let fear get the better of you.”

“Yes, that’s why I asked,” Barry says, more to himself. It’s not, but if that’s what Davenport wants to believe… “Thanks Dav. Uh, what do you want me to do with this ax?”

“Oh, just put it with the other weapons,” Davenport says, gesturing to the rack of weapons. “The kids are going to be fighting a Gronckle, which is over there.” Davenport points to a set of doors on the far side of the ring, kept locked by a log set into grooves that someone will have to pull up to get the doors open.

“Right,” Barry says. From what he remembers hearing people complain about, a lot of dragon training is learning on your feet, and trying not to get hit in the face with a blast of fire. Maybe he won’t be bad at this. He did survive his encounter with a Night Fury. “So…”

“Everything’s set up,” Davenport says, catching what Barry’s trying to get across. “We just have to wait, now.”

Waiting doesn’t take that long—Lucretia and Magnus both show up ten minutes later. Magnus goes to pester Davenport and get tips, while Lucretia comes and sits beside Barry. Barry’s mostly just staring at the smooth stone walls and trying to figure out what he’s going to do if he actually finds the Night Fury again. He doesn’t want to see it—he wants it to be off the island. Once it’s gone, he can stop thinking about it and try to get back to a semblance of normal life. At least then he’ll just have to worry about getting through dragon training, though if he doesn’t have to fight…maybe it won’t be so bad. If he hides in his forge for the rest of his life, maybe nobody will notice he can’t kill dragons. It hasn’t worked so far, but maybe it will if he gives it another few years?

The final teenagers show up a few minutes later, and Barry stands to…do something. Maybe Davenport will do all the talking? That’s what he’s hoping. He doesn’t know the other two teenagers well—Avi and Magnus are pretty good friends, and Lucretia gets on well with Johann, but the four of them pretty much paired off when they were kids, so Barry sees a lot more of Magnus. Angus, too, is there, even though he’s only ten, but honestly, Barry should’ve expected that one.

He is still an adult, though. He should try to be responsible. “Dav,” he says, lowering his voice as he leans over to talk. Since everyone else isn’t paying them any attention, it should be fine. “Uh, should Angus be here?”

“Do you want to get rid of him?” Davenport counters, and Barry frowns. “Exactly. I figure it’s safer to have him out in the open, because otherwise he’ll just sneak in and that would end worse.”

“Oh, yeah, it would,” Barry says, straightening up. Davenport nods at him, and then clears his throat, which gets the attention of the kids.

“Welcome to dragon training,” Davenport says, and Magnus cheers. “As I’m sure you already know, you’ll be learning to fight dragons. Whoever does the best in dragon training gets the honor of. killing their first dragon.”

The cage containing the mystery dragon rattles, again. Barry glances over at it, and wonders what dragon might be behind it. A Nightmare, maybe? They’re hard to catch, with the whole ‘setting themselves on fire’ thing. Or maybe it’s one of the rarer dragons—Barry’s never actually seen a Changewing himself, but they can change colors to blend in, and he can imagine that’d be seen as something decent to kill.

“It’s gonna be me,” Magnus brags, but he mostly just sounds really excited, and he’s practically bouncing on his feet. “Unless someone wants to challenge me?” Barry notes an eager glint in his eyes. At least someone will have fun.

“I’ll at least try,” Avi tells Magnus. Lucretia pulls one of her many journals out of her pocket, and Johann just shrugs. Okay, two people are going to actually put effort into fighting, Lucretia’s probably going to get away with just drawing, and Barry doesn’t know Johann well enough to know what a shrug means. Angus is still a kid, so Barry can guess that Magnus is going to try and protect him.

“It could be any of you,” Davenport says, and he glances over to Barry. It takes Barry a second, but then it hits him, and he goes over to the far side of the ring, grabbing the chain used the pull the log up, and he _pulls._ The second the log isn’t keeping the door jammed shut, it swings open—Barry dropping the chain with a yelp as he’s almost hit in the face—and a Gronckle bursts out of the cage, already in its buzzing flight.

“We don’t even have weapons!” Avi yells, as everyone makes a mad dash for the weapon rack. The Gronckle scratches it’s side, roars, and fires a shot directly at all of the kids, who scatter, though it does smash through the weapons rack, sending them skidding everywhere. Barry sticks to the edges of the ring, trying to keep out-of-sight of the Gronckle. Which is actually pretty easy, when Magnus grabs a spear and hurls it at the Gronckle. It glances off the dragon’s side.

“You punched a Nadder, Magnus, do something!” Lucretia yells, grabbing a shield off the rack. To Davenport, she adds, “is there a point to any of this or are we just expected to run around and not get killed?”

Davenport shrugs. “Dragons don’t play by any rules,” he says, “so neither do we.”

“We should distract it,” Johann says, picking up a shield of his own, as well as a small hammer that fell near him. “Death by Gronckle isn’t that high on my list of preferred ways to die.”

“Distraction!” Angus says, “that’s good! I remember uh, Gronckles don’t do well with noise!” He struggles to pick up a shield, but manages, and starts banging on it. Lucretia and Johann join in, the three of them spreading out. The Gronckle shakes it head, and hovers in place, making aborted movements only to try and go for someone else.

Using the window given to him, Magnus charges for the Gronckle, yelling wordlessly. That, however, is enough for the Gronckle to figure itself out, and it spins to spit fire at Magnus, who isn’t hit, but the ax he grabbed is, and it blows out of his hands. That doesn’t stop Magnus, though, who punches the Gronckle dead in the eye, and then drops to the floor and rolls under it before it can fire at him.

The Gronckle roars, and makes a beeline for the nearest person despite the shield-related distractions, which just so happens to be Angus. Luckily, Angus does have a shield, which takes the blow for him. Barry’s so caught up in being terrified for Angus that he starts when he feels someone tap his side, and spins to see Davenport.

“What?” Barry asks, calming himself.

“I didn’t make you assistant so you could stand here and watch,” Davenport says, shoving a shield into Barry’s hands. “Go help. Remember how many shots a Gronckle has?” The final part, he calls loud enough for the entire group to hear.

“Five?” Avi guesses, ducking just in time to not get hit by fire.

“With our luck, 12,” Johann counters. He hands his shield to Magnus, who charges for the Gronckle, knocking it away from Avi. Magnus helps Avi up, but the Gronckle snatches the shield in its jaws while he does so, and breaks it into several splintering pieces.

“It’s six,” Angus says. “So, two more?”

“Correct!” Davenport calls, and shoves Barry into the ring. Barry stumbles, managing to catch himself on his shield, just in time to see the Gronckle spin to face him.

Which. That’s not good. The shot of fire the Gronckle fires at him knocks the shield clean out of Barry’s hand, and, with no better options, Barry runs for it, hoping the Gronckle will just go after someone else. He isn’t that lucky, though, and the Gronckle charges after him, even as Barry finds himself cornered at a wall with nowhere else to go.

The Gronckle’s got him pinned. It’s horribly similar to what happened with the Night Fury, except when the Gronckle opens its mouth, there’s green gas building up inside of it—the Gronckle is very much here to kill him. Barry struggles, but the dragon’s got its entire weight on his chest, so he can hardly even breathe. It’s worse than when he was pinned by the Night Fury—there was something _else_ in the Night Fury’s eyes, but this dragon is looking at him with nothing but rage.

Well. Hopefully the Night Fury got away okay. At least when Barry’s dead, none of his problems will matter. He closes his eyes…

And the weight is gone from his chest. He still hears the final shot of fire go off, but when Barry cracks an eye open, it’s to see Davenport, who’s got a hook in the Gronckle’s mouth, dragging it back to its cage despite the flailing of the Gronckle. The doors slam shut behind the dragon, the log coming down to lock it back in.

Barry pushes himself up against the wall. He…nearly died, there. And if it wasn’t for Davenport, he would’ve.

Davenport comes over and offers him a hand up, that Barry gladly takes. He’s not sure if Davenport is upset or not, but he can tell dragon training is done for the day. Everyone’s staring at him, too, which just makes things worse.

“Remember,” Davenport says, curt, and he’s looking at Barry when he says it. “A dragon will _always_ go for the kill. Don’t let your guard down. Dismissed.”

Barry’s the last one left in the ring. The Night Fury…the Night Fury spared his life. The Night Fury _made the choice_ to spare his life, Barry realizes, and that’s…

He doesn’t know what it means.

He leaves the ring, and makes his way back into the forest.

Finding his way back to where he first saw the Night Fury is easy enough, and he still remembers the path the Night Fury took, so he heads deeper into the woods, sliding down a steep hill, and looking around for any sign of a dragon. He’s not sure what he’s expecting—that the Night Fury left him a note? _G_ _ot off safely, thanks for not killing me?_

He snorts. Maybe this was a stupid idea. He stops at the edge of a ravine, looking down into it. There’s a little pond in the center, some large rocks, a single tree. The grass is trampled and worn. He tilts his head.

It’s easy enough to find a way deeper into the ravine—there’s a tiny little break in the rocks he slips through, ducking under a thick tree root. There’s…he doesn’t see anything. He doesn’t hear anything. Barry frowns, looking down. There are some little black rocks near his—

Barry kneels down and picks one up. It’s a dragon’s scale. Black, glints with a sheen of red when he holds it up to catch the sunlight. The Night Fury was here. But—

His thoughts are cut off with a roar, and he falls backwards as the Night Fury surges upwards in front of him, powerful wings beating. It scrambles at the edge of the rocks, before letting out a desperate cry and flying back down, over the pond to land unsteadily on the other side. It’s got its left forepaw tucked up to its side, limping, and it shakes its head before jumping back into the air. It doesn’t even make it to the side of the ravine before it’s collapsing back to the ground, where it stays in a heap and doesn’t move.

It’s still here. Barry’s breath catches in his throat as he surges forwards, skidding from his little spot onto an outcropping of rock that’s a bit further down. He fumbles in his pockets for a journal he got from Lucretia, flipping it open to a random page. Below him, the Night Fury stands, tucking its wings in, and Barry pulls out his pencil to try and sketch a picture. A Night Fury, and he’s close enough to draw one, and he’s the only Viking to ever see one.

It doesn’t try to fly again, though. Barry frowns. “Just fly away,” he whispers, because he doesn’t want this specific dragon to get killed. It spared him when it could’ve just as easily killed him—it deserves to go back to its home. “Why don’t you?”

He studies the dragon some more, adding in a few more details as they stand out to him—the spikes down the dragons back that end near the tip of the tail, where—

Barry looks back to his drawing. The Night Fury he’s drawn has two tailfins. He looks back to the dragon before him, and it just has the one. It _can’t_ fly. The bola must’ve shredded its tailfin. No wonder it hasn’t left.

And he did that. He trapped a Night Fury, legend of legends, and he can stay here and watch it from a safe distance. Can take notes and draw pictures, even if they aren’t as good as Lucretia’s, and he can do it all without the Night Fury able to do anything.

Something turns in his gut, and Barry tries to push back his own discomfort at the idea. It’s what any real Viking would do. Get as much information as they could, and then march down there and kill the dragon, sever its head and display it like a trophy.

The Night Fury spits a blast of fire against the rock wall, before it snarls and stalks over to the pond, slapping at it with the paw not tucked close to its body. It glares at the water as though the water’s offended it, before settling down. It’s probably fishing. At least it has food in there, though the pond is small and the dragon is pretty big. Barry’s not sure how much food a dragon needs, but it has to be more than a tiny pond can provide.

Barry struggles to ignore the pit in his chest as he watches the Night Fury. His hand is shaking, badly, and he flips to a new page so he can maybe try and draw something, like the dragon fishing, and not make himself feel horrible. He goes to draw a line, and then sees, with dawning horror, the pencil slip from his grip, and clatter to the ground.

The Night Fury’s ears prick, and it turns to stare at him, green eyes meeting his own. Barry swallows, and tilts his head. Maybe the dragon will look away?

It doesn’t. The Night Fury tilts its own head, all of the little flaps on its face flaring out, and it narrows his eyes as though studying him. It has to recognize him, but it makes no moves towards him—just watches. It’s so much like something he might do, just observe from a distance, that Barry doesn’t know how to handle it.

He swallows. The dragon makes an odd noise, not a roar, but something almost like a croon, that reminds Barry of a question.

Nope. Fuck this. He doesn’t know anything about Night Furies, and he doesn’t know what to do with the one he accidentally trapped, that’s watching him just as much as he’s watching it.

Barry scrambles to his feet, and flees. All the while, the gaze of the Night Fury bores into his back, intelligent and calculating.

* * *

Barry can’t sleep. He blames the Night Fury—ever since he shot it down, he’s been unable to sleep except for short, fitful bursts. It’s not a good way to live, but he just—the Night Fury had two chances to kill him. It let him live when he freed it. It let him live when he saw it earlier. He saw its fire-blast, it could’ve shot him and been done with it. But it just watched him back.

He pushes himself up on his desk, brushing aside various notes, and opens his journal to his picture of the Night Fury. The single tailfin stares at him like laughter—the dragon that spared his life twice, and he’s doomed it to either death by starvation, or death by capture.

There’s a Book of Dragon, Barry remembers. Everything the Vikings know on every dragon they know of. It’s in the Great Hall, and it’s the middle of the night—it would be easy to sneak in and flip to the page about Night Furies. Maybe someone else saw one, once, and had a similar experience to him. He doubts it, but he also never thought a dragon would spare his life, so anything can happen.

He stuffs the journal back in his pocket, and stands up, heading out of his room. His door, always heavy, slams shut behind him, and Barry stands there for a horrible, horrible moment. Did he wake Davenport? Because if so, he’s fucked—he can’t tell anybody about the Night Fury, but he especially can’t tell Davenport.

A door opens. It’s not, thankfully, the door to Davenport’s room, but the creaky one to Lucretia’s room. She pokes her head out, rubbing at her eyes. “Barry?” she asks, through a yawn. “Why are you awake?”

“Why are you?” Barry counters, as Lucretia shuts the door behind her.

“Your door slamming woke me up,” she says. “Where are you going?”

Barry could lie. He could tell Lucretia to go back to sleep, and she would. But she’d also wonder why he left, and might try to figure it out—and he can’t have that. “I wanted to go check out the dragon book,” he says, because it’s the truth. “You can come with me, if you want?”

Lucretia shrugs. “Sure,” she says. She follows Barry down the stairs, and the two of them spend a good five minutes looking for shoes, because it’s cold out, and Barry isn’t in the mood to step on a sharp stick and cut himself. Once shoes are found and put on, they both head out into the night. A chill wind bites at Barry’s arms, and he wishes he’d been smart enough to grab a coat.

The Great Hall isn’t too far away, though. Barry pushes open the huge doors just enough for the two of them to slip in, and he shuts them to keep out the cold. This late at night, it’s empty, and Barry grabs one of the few still-burning candles to see by. The dragon book is kept in one of the few bookshelves, alongside the walls to keep them away from any food. He pulls it out, sits down at one of the long tables. Lucretia sits beside him.

“Are you looking for a particular dragon?” she asks, as Barry starts to flip through the book. “Or just in general, since you almost died today?” Her voice softens when she says the last part, but Barry shakes his head.

“I’m fine,” he says. Should he tell her he’s looking for a Night Fury? Eh. She’s pretty much his sister, and it’s not like he’s the only person to ever be curious about a Night Fury. “I’m looking for the Night Fury,” he says. He flips past the pages for Changewings, Zipplebacks, Thunderdrums—extremely dangerous, kill on sight, every single page just some variation of the same advice. Melts victims, burns victims, turns them inside out—nothing about a dragon sparing anyone’s life, that’s for sure.

“Oh,” Lucretia says. “Any reason why?”

Barry racks his brain for some excuse. “Angus thought he found Night Fury scales, that last raid,” he says. He’s pretty sure they _were_ Night Fury scales, now that he thinks about it. They were the same size and shape of the ones he found in the ravine.

Extremely dangerous, kill on sight—does this book have any other advice? Barry growls as he flips through it, and then, the last page—Night Fury. Unlike the others, with pictures, this page is empty other than a few short lines.

“He told me about that,” Lucretia says, and Barry’s only half listening. _The unholy offspring of lightning and death,_ the book claims, and Barry hides back a snort—the Night Fury wasn’t scary enough to warrant that. “Angus thinks the mystery dragon locked up in the ring is a Night Fury. Since nobody ever saw one during the raid, but he thinks he found scales.”

Barry does snort at that one. “It isn’t,” he says, because the Night Fury is currently trapped, yes, but not in the ring. “We don’t even know for sure they were Night Fury scales. Not like anyone’s seen one.”

“Would be cool to, though,” Lucretia says, looking down at the book. “Never engage this dragon,” she reads, “your only chance is to hide and pray it doesn’t find you.” She frowns. “That’s useless. Why bother to put in a section of Night Furies if the only advice is that we don’t know anything about it?”

Barry doesn’t know. But he knows the journal in his pocket with what might just be the only picture of a Night Fury. And he knows the Night Fury is trapped in a ravine, and he know it spared him twice. It already found him, and he’s still alive, isn’t he?

Barry’s never been one for self-preservation, anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter's a day early, because tomorrow is christmas and i've got plans. happy holidays to everyone who'll be celebrating something! 
> 
> also, while rereading notes for this while editing, i discovered a fact that i want everyone reading this to know. originally, the dragons were going to be the ones from dnd, so like, silver, gold, all that, and they'd work the same, too, so dragons could change into elves and such. but then before i even started writing i decided that was the coward's route to take. of all the httyd aus i skimmed, very few of them made the human and the dragon fall in love. which: cowardly. are you telling me you wouldn't marry a dragon?
> 
> anyways. chapter 5 will be back to the normal schedule of updating on wednesdays. seeya then!


	5. lup makes art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup interacts with the same human a few times, and starts to realize huh, he might be more sentient than she previously thought?

Twice, now, Lup’s seen the same human show up. And twice, now, the human has let her live—the first time it freed her, and now this second time, where it came to watch her. She was already down, the human had to have noticed that…but it didn’t come charging in with a knife. It watched her like she watched it, until it fled. Lup isn’t sure what that means.

She wants the human to come back. It’s something interesting, something new in the rocky cage she’s trapped in—she needs that. She needs something to puzzle over rather that wasting all her time missing Taako like she misses her tailfin, and the human is a perfect opportunity.

She’s sprawled out in a patch of sun, warm. She’s hungry, but she’s gone longer without food. She’s bored, but she’s slowly getting used to that. She misses Taako, but when doesn’t she miss her brother? She’s wondering about the human, but she doesn’t have anything else to wonder about.

Her ears prick, and she looks up towards the top of the ravine. Footsteps. And…she smells _fish!_ It has to be the human, then: she can’t imagine anybody else who would bring fish. She darts to her paws and is up on a rock before the human can get down, crouched and ready-to-pounce if it comes to that. The human has spared her twice, yes, but she doesn’t know what game it’s playing. She can’t be fully sure she can trust it.

But oh, how good that fish smells…

She keeps her eyes trained on the little entrance the human came in, last time. It’s much too small for her to squeeze out through, but it’s big enough for the human, who she can see creeping its way closer, holding something wooden in one hand, and a fish in the other. Lup’s ear-flap perk. The wooden thing—the shield, Lup’s pretty sure, as it’s what humans call them whenever a dragon steals one away—gets stuck between the rocks. The human tugs at it, but sighs with something like defeat, and crawls underneath it.

The human takes slow steps into the ravine, gaze sweeping as it looks for her. Lup tilts her head. It does have a fish, one she very much would like to have. And it’s come alone, which is also a good sign—Lup knows if any other humans knew about her, she’d’ve seen them by now.

Dragons bring food for peace offerings. Maybe humans do the same? Lup’s never thought them smart enough for things like that, but…this particular human is proving itself a surprise, and Lup’s curious enough to engage.

She slides off her rock, and the human freezes when it notices her. Lup stalks forwards, movements wary, ear-flaps pricked and wings tensed for the first sign of a threat. She sniffs the air—fish, and…metal. Lup snarls, flaring her wings and curling her claws. If this is some sort of trick, she’s going to blast the human, who cares if it spared her.

The human’s eyes go wide, though, and it pulls a dagger out from the various pelts it’s wearing. Lup hisses at it, ear-flaps pinned, and the human drops it. Lup keeps her eyes on the dagger, ignoring the tempting call of _fish fish fish._ She’s not getting tricked, not ever.

The human makes a noise like _this?_ and kicks the dagger aside, so it splashes into the pond. Lup purrs, sitting back and blinking. A peace offering, then. She waits, for a second, but the human just stands there, holding the fish out for her. It’s…it really means this. And Lup’s hungry, and this is the only human who hasn’t tried to kill her first thing, and it’s spared her life twice, so fuck it.

Lup creeps closer, closer, until she could lean forwards and touch the human. It doesn’t move—she can see the same tenseness in its faint movements. Its breathing is almost calculated, as though it’s forcing its calm. Lup opens her jaws to snatch the fish, and the human makes an odd noise—something like _Toothless._ It means nothing to her, so she slides her teeth out and snatches up the fish, tossing it back and swallowing it in a single gulp. She licks her lips, and tilts her head to examine the human. It was a good fish.

And she…she wants to return the favor. She doesn’t know how much humans understand, but if it knows enough to give her a peace offering, she’s going to do it back. She takes a few steps towards the human, that backs up when she does, until its back is up against a rock, and its staring up at her, wide-eyed. It hisses something scared, and Lup just blinks.

There’s that weird sound again: _Toothless._ It’s almost like…Lup’s ear flaps flutter. It’s like the human is addressing her. Like it’s trying to figure out her name, except those aren’t the sounds for her name. Not that she’s expecting humans to be able to talk. She can’t believe this one’s smart enough to even know what a name is. Humans, she’s pretty sure, don’t have names.

_Toothless._ Weird sounds, but she likes it—kinda like a proud hiss. She’ll take it. And to the human, she still has her own peace offering to make. She regurgitates half the fish onto the human, and sits back, tilting her head to watch the human. It looks down at the fish, and back up at her. There’s _disgust_ written clear across his face when it stares at the half-fish, and Lup chirrs her laughter. Do humans not eat fish, then? That’s their loss.

“Look,” Lup says in a soft chirp, glancing down at the fish and back up to the human. It lets out a sigh, but picks up the fish with it’s weird, scaleless hands, and brings it to its mouth, taking a bite. Its teeth are blunt, so Lup’s not too sure how humans are able to hunt like that. Maybe they mostly eat berries.

Lup swallows, and the human does so, bringing a paw up to its mouth and shuddering when it’s done. Lup laughs, licking her lips—if humans are this bad at eating, how _did_ they survive this long?

But she’s done good, she thinks. First dragon to share a fish with a human, that’s for sure. She twitches an ear-flap, wondering if the human’s thinking, in there. Can they think? She’s never thought so, but this one…this one is weird.

The human looks at her, and bares his teeth. Lup tenses—they just made peace, what is it playing at?—but there’s nothing angry in the human’s eyes, and it doesn’t move to go grab it’s dagger. Just the bared teeth, but it almost…it’s not angry. It’s not trying to fight her. Its eyes are crinkled up at the edges.

Oh! It’s trying to _smile_ at her, as best it can with its weird human mouth and inferior eyes. Lup mimics the motion, keeping her teeth retracted as she tries to get the same upturn in her jaws that the human’s got going on. It’s funny! This human is weird, and she likes that. She pricks her ear-flaps happily, and squints her eyes in a smile of her own.

The human stands, pushing a paw off the ground to help it up, leaving the rest of the fish behind. Lup’ll eat it later. It approaches her, and Lup’s ear-flaps pin back as she creeps backwards, but the human comes for her fast with a hand, and she snarls, baring her teeth and flying off as best she can, to the other side of the pond.

Humans. She’s never going to understand them. She turns in a half-circle, burning into the ground before she settles down next to the embers. She might’ve made peace with the human, but she doesn’t trust it, that’s for sure. It’s not touching her. She stretches out her forepaws—her sore one is doing better, today, and she’s able to put weight on it. She glances up to the one tree, tilting her head at the chirp of birdcall. She hasn’t heard birds, for a while. Lup assumed her crashing and roaring had scared them all off, but apparently not. There’s a bird perched on the edge of a nest, mostly a light gray-brown with a few streaks of blue in its wings. She snorts to herself, resting her head on the ground.

She hears a noise beside her. Lup turns to see the human, and it waves at her with a noise of its own. It bares its teeth, again, except, no, it’s being friendly, that’s a human friendly thing, she thinks. A smile. She rolls her eyes, shuffling so she doesn’t have to look at the human, wrapping her tail around herself to cover her face. The human makes another sound, one that’s a bit like laughter.

Hmm. She’s not sure the human is an it. She narrows her eyes when it tries to touch her tail, and it walks away, giving her some space. Lup studies the human. It’s chattering to itself, a bit like a bird, actually…it’s got pale skin, and most of the pelts it’s wearing a brown, but the ones over its legs are a nice shade of dark blue.

“Bluejay,” Lup says. It’s a soft sound, like a croon. It suits the human: blue and chattering and annoying. “Bluejay!” she repeats, and the human glances over at her. She grins at it—no, not it, at him. She grins at him, and Bluejay smiles back.

Lup doesn’t know how she feels about the human, but…he’s interesting. He’s something new. And she’s always been curious, if Taako is to be believed, so…

“Bluejay,” Lup croons, and stretches out on a warm rock to sunbathe, while the human sits on a rock of his own, and watches. That’s how they spend the rest of the night. Bluejay leaves when the sun sets, with a call of a noise, and then _Toothless._ Lup thinks it’s a goodbye.

“Bye, Bluejay,” she calls after him, and she clambers her way up the one tree to watch him go.

* * *

Bluejay comes back the next day, this time with two fish. Lup wastes no time trotting over to him, tilting her head. He holds out both fish, and Lup snatches up one, swallowing it. The other, she takes more gently, and offers back to Bluejay, but he just shakes his head, so Lup snaps that one up, too. Humans must really not like fish, if he’s refused.

Bluejay sits down at a rock, and Lup sits a distance away, keeping an eye on him. He’s brought her fish two days in a row, and she’s pretty confident he’s not going to hurt her, but it’s still better to be safe.

“Toothless,” he calls, and Lup knows that’s what he’s calling her, so she lifts her head, ear-flaps pricked.

“Bluejay,” she echoes, and he grins, like this is something big and grand and new. Lup can’t help but grin back. It is, she thinks. Dragons don’t talk to humans. Humans don’t talk back. Actually…

Lup stands, moving closer to Bluejay. He watches her, head tilted.

“Lup,” she says, nodding down at herself. And again: “I’m Lup.” Bluejay just looks confused, though, so she tries something else. “Toothless,” she tries her best to say, and it comes out garbled and hissed, but Bluejay’s leaning forwards, so she thinks he maybe gets it. She nods down at herself, twitches her tail, and says, again, “Lup.” Another flick of her tail, another nod at herself.

Bluejay chews at his lip. “Lup,” he says. It’s nowhere close to right—the low growl of her name sounds weird when he says it, and he can’t get the click right, but he’s _trying,_ and he understands! Lup purrs, nodding.

“Lup,” he repeats, in his half-mangled way. He points at himself. “Barry,” he says.

_Barry._ Lup doesn’t know how to even begin trying to say that. Human names are weird. She attempts, though, and it comes out just as bad as Barry’s own attempt at saying her own name did. She laughs, stretching out her wings and shaking herself.

“Toothless?” Barry asks, and Lup looks over to him. He says something else, but it’s nothing she understand, and she tells him as such with a low whine of _sorry._ Barry frowns, thinking.

And then an idea hits Lup. “We can practice?” she offers, knowing full well Barry can’t understand a single word she says. It’s what she’s going to do, though. If Barry is going to be bringing her fish, the least she can do is learn how to say his name properly. Bluejay works as a nickname—she’s fine answering to Toothless, too—but she wants to be able to speak his name _properly._ It’s amazing that they’ve even managed to do this much—he’s a human. Humans aren’t supposed to have names.

And here Barry is. Having a name. Lup snorts, and sits back, her eyes light. “Bluejay,” she calls, to get Barry’s attention, and when he looks to her, she flicks her gaze up to the ravine, where he comes from. “Practice at home,” she says.

He doesn’t seem to understand, though, and Lup’s not really sure how else to get her point across, so she just sighs and stretches out beside the pond, keeping an eye out for any fish. There’s a lot of fish, but they’re all tiny and hard to catch, which is pretty much the same thing as not having any fish, in her opinion. At least she’s used to being hungry. She should start saving fish, if Barry keeps bringing them to her.

_Barry._ The human has a name! And she knows that name, and he knows hers, even if neither of them can really pronounce them. But they can understand each other, somewhat! It’s all…weird. Barry’s more like a dragon than she ever thought a human could be. He’s smart, he’s kind, he can talk, kinda. He got closer to saying her name than she did his, at least.

She glances over to see what he’s doing. He’s not looking at her, but at something in his lap, and Lup doesn’t feel like watching him stare at something that isn’t her, so she turns her attention to fishing. When she gives up fishing hours later, Barry’s not there anymore. She sniffs at the rock. Hmm.

“Barry,” she tries, and she can’t get her jaws to move in the ways his did, to make those same sounds he did. His name is more of a growl, when she tries, more of a suggestion of sound than anything else. She spends the next hour trying, but the best she can get is a growl, and that’s…well. He gave his name to her, and just like she knows to answer to _Toothless,_ he knows to answer to _Bluejay._

She’s still going to try, of course. It’s the right thing to do. But she’s tired, now, so Lup yawns, curls herself into a ball, and dozes off.

* * *

Barry comes by, the next few days. They don’t always talk—sometime they try to say each other’s names, sometimes they just both exist in the same ravine. Lup doesn’t mind either way, and she likes dozing in the sun knowing that Barry’s keeping an eye out for her. She trusts him well enough. She still moves away when he tries to touch her, but she’s sure he’d yell if he saw another human, and give Lup time to hide.

Currently, she’s dangling by her tail from one of the branches of the one tree. She’s half-asleep, but she’s been half-asleep for a while, so she’s about ready to get up. She yawns, shaking herself away and spreading her wings to catch herself when she lets her tail slip, righting herself and landing on her feet. Is Barry here? She looks around for him, and oh, there he is. Sitting on a rock near the pond, holding a stick and poking it into the dirt.

Lup thrums with her curiosity, and pads over to see what he’s doing. He’s scratching lines into the dirt with the stick, and he glances up at her when she stands beside him, but otherwise keeps doing what he’s doing. It’s…he’s making something.

He’s making _her,_ Lup realizes, staring at the shapes in the dirt that are her, her ear-flaps and face and eyes. She blinks down at Barry—he can _make things!_ He can make things like her, drawn and beautiful, and if he can do that…

Lup wants to get to know him like she hasn’t ever wanted to know another dragon, before. She wants to talk to him like she can talk to her brother, up into the night, long conversations of little substance, but that are endlessly interesting. She wants to say his name correctly, and she wants to make things like he is, and she wants to show Barry what she can do—to spin and twirl in the sky and aim to impress.

Well. She can’t do all of that, but she can do one. She eyes the stick he’s using, and looks over to the tree, trotting over to it. She grabs one of the branches in her jaws, and slides her teeth out to get a good grip, pulling and shaking until the branch comes free with a loud _snap!_ She grabs one end of it, letting the other trail in the dirt, so when she drags the branch, it leaves marks behind.

And then she draws. Barry drew her, but she doesn’t want to draw Barry—she wants to draw her thoughts. They’re swooping and swirling like flight all around her, as she spins herself around Barry’s rock. He ducks to avoid the leaves at one end of her branch, and she snorts, grinning at him when she passes.

Her thoughts have been _everywhere,_ recently. Going around and around, as she wondered about humans and dragons and how they were similar. About her and Barry, and how they were trying to talk to each other. She can’t say his words, but she can etch a deep, curving line into the earth. He can’t say her words, but he can turn lines into an image of her, and she makes sure to leave his picture untouched.

Lup finishes her drawing with a jab into the dirt, and drops her branch as she observes it. Barry’s at the center, and she at one edge, where she sits and preens happily, head held high. She nods at her picture, and then looks to Barry, who’s following the lines with his eyes, a small smile on his face.

It’s. It’s _amazement,_ she realizes, and her eyes crinkle in a smile. She’s surprised this human, but he’s surprised her, so that’s just a fair trade-off, she thinks.

Barry stands, still keeping his eyes on her art. He takes a few steps, and—Lup hisses. She left his art alone, so he’s not going to step on hers. Barry lifts his foot, looks over to her. Lup purrs. He puts his foot down again, on her line, and she hisses. Purrs when he lifts it up, and he does it one more time.

“Don’t step on it!” she snaps, and Barry moves his foot off of it to grin at her. She tosses her head with a snort, and rolls her eyes. _Dumb human,_ she thinks, and is startled by the amount of affection in it, ruffling her wings. It’s…weird. She shouldn’t be this fond of Barry. She’s known him a week, and sure, he’s been her only company, and good company, at that, but…

Lup shakes herself, and returns her attention to Barry. Knowing the rules she’s set out, he makes his way through her art, arms spread wide to keep his balance as he turns and twists, taking care not to step on any of her lines. Closer and closer he gets, not even seeming to notice, until he’s just under her head, so close that Lup could press her snout to his hair.

She breaths. Barry looks up at her, and takes a few steps back, meeting her eyes. He reaches out his hand, and Lup bares her teeth, growling faintly. Barry’s hand lowers, and he looks at her. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes, holding his hand out to her.

He’s letting her choose.

Lup’s tail shivers where it’s curled around her. The world is just the two of them, just this—and Lup takes a deep breath, before she leans forwards, and presses her nose into his hand. Barry starts, and cracks open his eyes, looking up at her through the corners of them.

“You,” Lup breaths, pulling her nose away. She raises her head to look him in the eye. “Are a very interesting human.”

Barry doesn’t understand the words, she knows. But he understands her message, and Lup thinks they might be able to learn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year! i haven't written since last decade!!
> 
> also: i'm pretty sure bluejeans didnt exist in viking times but shh i dont care. 
> 
> next chapter coming out in a week.


	6. barry starts to fix that one big glaring mistake he made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry realizes just how stuck Lup is, that it's pretty much his fault, and decides to fix it.

Barry can’t stop thinking about Lup. Her name echoes in his mind all day, for all he can’t say it: _Lup, Lup, Lup,_ the Night Fury that pressed her nose to his palm, who created art in swirling lines, who grins back at him, in her squinting eyes. She pricks her ears when he calls her nickname, understands that he can’t make the same growls she can—knows that when he says _Toothless_ what he’s trying to say is _Lup._

Toothless. He can’t fucking believe he nicknamed Lup _Toothless._ Part of him hopes the chirping name she calls him is something equally dumb, just to be fair. He wants to speak to her, like he might speak to Lucretia or Davenport. He’s curious. He wants to know more, and he has a chance to—he’s been sneaking out to see Lup every day since he shot her down, and they’re slowly getting better at communicating. He knows which call means _hello,_ and which growl means _back off._ It’s not much, but it’s more than anybody else knows about dragons, and Night Furies, and that makes something inside him perk up with pride.

“Barry,” Magnus says, and Barry blinks, looking around. Right. He was…fuck, he’s kinda got no idea what’s going on. Something about dinner? He looks down to see that he’s got an empty plate in his lap, so presumably he’s eaten whatever it was. Maybe he shouldn’t zone out thinking about Lup—he doesn’t want anybody to get suspicious.

“Sorry, what?” he asks, looking around. It’s him and Davenport and the rest of the dragon training kids—they’re all gathered around a fire at the top of one of the watch towers. Right. Something about…stories? Barry’s pretty sure Davenport was telling stories about the dragons he's fought, anyways.

“If you were fighting a dragon,” Magnus says, “would you got for the legs or the eyes? Avi says he’d try to stab out their eyes but that sounds stupid and too difficult, because the mouth is right there to bite you, and if you want it to stay down, you could just break its leg, so it’s limping. And dragons can still hear and smell.”

“…why are those the only two options?” is all Barry can think to say.

“I told you!” Lucretia calls. “It’s a stupid question.”

“ _You’re_ a stupid question!” Magnus shoots back, and Lucretia just stares at him. He flushes. “Don’t ask what I mean by that! I don’t know, I fucked up!”

“You sure did,” Johann says. Barry startles—he forgot Johann was here, and he’s sitting furthest from the firelight, so it’s a little hard to see him. “I think Avi’s right. Have you ever tried to break a dragon’s leg?”

“Well, maybe not,” Magnus says. “But did you see me in dragon training today! I totally punched that Nadder.”

Right, dragon training. Barry’s been getting pretty good at avoiding dragons, ever since that horrible start with the Gronckle. Davenport probably doesn’t suspect anything.

“You did do that,” Johann says, slowly.

“You’re supposed to go for the wings,” Angus says, glancing over to Davenport. “Right? So it can’t fly away.”

“Wings are generally the best, yes,” Davenport agrees. “A downed dragon is a dead dragon; if it can’t fly away, you’ve already won.”

_Lup can’t fly away._

Barry starts. Her tailfin is missing and he’s the one that caused that, even if he didn’t mean it. And he really, really enjoys visiting Lup, and learning about her and doing his best to talk to her—but he wants her to be safe. Trapped in a ravine, with no way of getting out—Davenport is right. She’s a dead dragon walking, and if anybody else stumbles across her, there goes that, and Barry would’ve been a terrible friend.

Are they friends? That’s another question to think about, though if Lup asked him, Barry thinks he would say yes. They’re on their way to it, he hopes. It’s…this is something he wants to do. He’s never been so excited about something before, but Lup—he wants to spend more time with her. He wants to learn more about her. Wants to see if he’s wrong about anything else, because nobody’s ever told him that dragons have _names._ That maybe, humans and dragons can converse.

He’s the only one who knows any of this, but that all means nothing if Lup’s going to spend the rest of her life trapped. Friends don’t let their friends die, and if Barry is going to call himself a friend, he’s going to do what he can to help her.

Carefully, to not make any noise, he sets his plate down. Davenport’s telling another story—something about a dragon that's said to create lightning—so everyone’s focused on him, and not Barry, who starts to slip away.

“Where are you going?” Lucretia asks, her voice quiet. Barry freezes, and turns to see her watching him go, her eyes glinting with question in the flicker of firelight.

“Bed,” he says, faking a yawn. “Haven’t been sleeping well.” That one, at least, is the truth.

“Oh. Goodnight, then,” Lucretia says, turning back to her journal. Barry breaths out a sigh of relief and hurries down the stairs, skipping the final few to start running home. He’s an inventor, isn’t he? He’s made stupid things before, but this is something important. He’ll have to be careful about it, of course, so nobody finds out, but…

His journal with the various pictures he’s sketched of Lup is kept in his closet, and Barry pulls it out, tossing it onto the desk and brushing all the other papers to the ground. He grabs the nearest pencil, and flips to that very first picture he ever drew of Lup. She’s just got the one tailfin, but…

He has leather, and he knows the shape of her tailfin. He sketches in one similar to her own, but a bit more angular—Lup’s tailfin has a bit of a curve to it, but he’s just going to be working with straight lines, to make things easier. It’s not like he has any idea how she actually flies—he’d assume it’s just flapping the wings, but obviously not.

Leather for the actual tailfin, then. He’ll have to make a strap so he can attach it to her tail, and it'll have to be strong—Night Furies are known for being fast, and he doesn't want it to slip off. She can fan her tailfin in and out, so it has to be able to do that, too. Barry stands to go grab a larger sheet of paper, and starts sketching out his ideas. She’s got little…he’s not sure what they are, actually, but ridges, almost, he could mimic that if he has thin enough metal rods…

Barry spends the rest of the night drawing up various designs for a new tailfin. He’ll need some measurements, see how long her tailfin is, that sort of thing, but then. Barry sits back in his chair, and grins up at the ceiling. He could really do this. Build Lup a new tailfin, and then…

And then she can go back home, wherever that might be. Barry won’t ever see her again.

And that’s…okay. This wasn’t ever going to be a long-term thing. She’s a dragon, for fucks sake, it’s not like he could hide her forever. The quicker she’s gone, the better it is for the both of them. He’ll just…go back to sharpening swords.

That’s fine. Barry’s fine. He thumps his head down on his desk, staring at what he thinks is the finalized design. Just the measurements, and then he can start making it—he glances out the window to see moonlight—tomorrow. It’s not that big or complicated, it shouldn’t take more than a few days, at most.

A few more days with Lup. Barry yawns, pushing himself up. He’s not going to waste them, then. There’s no reason to. He whispers her name under his breath a few times, trying to practice, and gets a bit closer.

“Lup,” he says, thoughtfully, as he hides all of his drawings just in case someone comes in his room. It’ll be a surprise, he thinks. Lup’d like that.

After all, he was the one who shot her down and made her lose her tailfin. It’s only fair he gives back what he took from her.

* * *

Barry gets out of dragon training and escapes to the forest. There’s no actual fighting going on, today, so it’s easy enough for him to flee. The path to Lup’s ravine is practically second-nature, and after a customary check to make sure nobody is watching him, he’s home free.

He’s brought a spool of string, today, as well as a pencil—he doesn’t need _exact_ measurements for this, so string will work just fine. One string to mark the length of her tailfin, one for the width, another for how thick the base of her tail is. He’s also brought the usual fish. Only two, because they smell awful and he can’t carry much more than that without getting a barrel, and he doesn’t want to make things more suspicious by stealing a barrel of fish and dragging it into the woods.

“Lup, I’m here,” Barry calls as he ducks under the still-stuck shield and into the ravine. He’s still somewhat mangling the pronunciation of her name, but it’s a lot better than his first few attempts—he’s gotten the growl part down pretty well, it’s just the click he can’t figure out. He’s pretty sure it’s a sound he physically can’t make, no matter how hard he tries, but that’s not about to stop him.

“Barry?” he hears from down below, and when he slides into the ravine, he sees Lup, stretched out in the shade under an outcrop of rock. When she says his name, it sounds a bit like she’s got something stuck in her throat. Lup must think so, too, because she snarls and instead chirps her own nickname for him.

“Got some fish,” he says, and Lup perks up before he’s even pulled the two fish out, standing up and trotting over to him. Since she first touched him, she’s been a lot more casual about it—see, currently, Lup poking her nose into his belly as though he’s got the fish hidden there. Barry pushes her nose away, and pulls both fish out.

Lup chirps and snatches up both fish, licking her lips once she’s swallowed them. She croons happily, stretching out much like a cat would, though her wings, too, are spread wide, as is her tailfin where her tail is arched over her back. She steps out of her stretch and out of the shade, heading over to a rock in the sun.

“Hey, Toothless,” Barry calls, hurrying after her. His throat is too sore to keep calling her Lup, for today—practicing half the night while also sketching designs really fucked that up. Lup stops, looking at him from under one of her wings. Barry snorts. “I wanted to know, the name you call me, what does it mean?”

To try and help get his point across, he tries to mimic her name for him, a series of high-pitched chirps. Lup nods, bounding over to her tree and scrambling her way up it. She stops at one branch, and gestures to it with her nose. Barry looks—there’s a bird’s nest, but no bird. “It’s something bird-related,” he guesses, and Lup’s tail twitches. She paws at the branch.

“C’mere,” she says, another one of the few words Barry recognizes—a sharp sound, and a beckon with an ear. Barry approaches the tree, because it’s a big tree, but Lup’s taking up most of the space, and she nods. “Here,” she says, climbing a little bit higher to give him space.

It’s a lot of work to figure out which bird Lup nicknamed him after. Barry has things he has to do, here. But he is curious, so he climbs up the tree, and creeps out as best he can on the branch Lup was on, to peer into the bird’s nest. Inside, there’s three chicks, that Barry thinks are some type of jay.

“Jay?” he wonders, but Lup shakes her head, hopping off the tree and into the air, gliding back to the ground. Barry climbs down, himself, and Lup is practically on top of him the second he is, prodding at his jeans with her nose. She gestures bird, jeans, bird, jeans.

He doubts dragons have a word for jeans, or, any clothing, really, but they are blue… “Bluejay!” he says, and Lup, even though she can’t know if he’s right, chirps happily and bumps her head against his shoulder. She sits back, titling her head.

“You?” she asks, and hisses out her best rendition of _Toothless._

“Oh,” Barry says, “it’s stupid, but.” He approaches her, and opens his own mouth, tapping his teeth. Lup mirrors him, making a sort of questioning croak in the back of her throat as she slides out her teeth. “Not this, but,” he shakes his head and Lup slides her teeth back in. “When you first ate the fish, I thought you had teeth, so when I didn’t see any…” he trails off and shrugs. “Not the greatest nickname, but that’s what Toothless means.” He points again to her toothless mouth.

Lup nods, muttering something to herself in a series of quick clicks and growls Barry can’t translate.

“I have to do something,” Barry says, pulling out his journal. Lup’s seen him sketch in it enough to understand it means he doesn’t want to go running around, so she nods and settles down on a wide, flat rock, her tail tapping against it as she suns herself. Barry smiles, and waits until it looks like Lup’s well and truly dozed off, before he creeps over to her, and starts taking measurements.

The level of trust Lup has in him is, quite frankly, astonishing. She does crack an eye open when he approaches, but goes right back to sleep—she’s a dragon, and he’s a human, and she’s willing to go right on sleeping while he pokes around with her tail. It’s…

Barry likes it. He stifles a yawn, and pulls out his string, stretching out the first piece. It might be easier if he just brought a dagger to cut the string with, but that wouldn’t be fair to Lup, both because he wouldn’t be able to explain why he needed it, and two, even if he could, it would ruin the surprise.

Getting the measurements only takes a few minutes, and Lup only notices the last one, when he wraps a piece of string around her tail. She turns around to stare at him, but Barry just marks off a few inches of excess to adjust if needed, and turns back to face her, stuffing the string and pencil in his pocket. Lup blinks, and grumbles something that’s probably about him being annoying and bothering her when she’s trying to sleep.

“Sorry,” he says, “just, uh. Doing something pretty cool. Hey, Lup, we’ve never talked about your life, have we? What’s that like?”

Lup stares at him.

“Right, you don’t understand most anything I say yet. Uh…” He looks back over to the bird’s nest. “Oh! Um,” the chirping sound that she calls him, _Bluejay,_ and she follows his gaze over to the nest. “Eggs,” he says, and he slides off the rock to lean up against it, instead, grabbing a stick and drawing an oval. Lup’s head peers down at him from the rock, her tail dangling over his shoulder. He pushes it out of the way so he can see. “Do you have any siblings?” he asks, gesturing between the egg he drew and the eggs in the nest.

“Oh!” Lup says, a word he knows because it’s pretty similar. She hops down from the rock, tosses her head like she’s proud. “Taako,” she says, tapping the egg with her paw. “Taako,” and a soft noise he’s never heard before, but one that makes Lup’s eyes go happy. She says a little bit more, but Barry is only able to pick out a word that sounds a little bit like _goodbye._ She tilts her head. “You?”

“Lucretia,” he says, and Lup nods, her ears pricked. “We aren’t related, but we have the same kinda-dad, so she’s basically my sister.”

They talk for a little longer. Basic stuff, because Barry still only knows very little of Lup’s language—he gets something about her missing her sibling, but that’s mostly because whenever she says _Taako_ she glances at her tailfin for a second, before shaking it off. Barry’s pretty sure Lup is able to understand that Davenport is his dad, but not any of the little pieces behind that. Eventually, though, Barry’s yawning too often to keep talking, and Lup bumps her nose against his hand, and heads over to the pond.

Barry should really get up and go back, but he’s gotten used to the rock digging into his back, and it’s fun to watch Lup splash after fish in the pond. He doesn’t want to go home and talk to anybody, he wants to stay here, where Lup’s willing to let him lay there and also won’t ask him about dragon training. He yawns, slumps down a little. He’ll just wait a few more minutes…

When Barry next opens his eyes, it’s to see Lup, holding his pencil carefully in her jaws. She catches his eye, and her ears go back as she drops the pencil.

“What are you up to?” Barry asks, rubbing at his eyes. It’s night—he can see the moon when he looks up. Lup brushes the pencil back over to him with her tail, her movements small. “You can touch my stuff, I don’t mind.” He tells her, and stumbles to his feet. He feels to make sure he has everything—string, pencil… “Where’s my journal?”

Lup blinks and looks away. Barry sighs.

“Please tell me it’s not in the pond,” Barry says, pointing that way, and Lup shakes her head. Barry breathes out his relief—as long as it’s salvageable, he really doesn’t care what Lup’s done to it. “Lup,” he says, keeping his voice calm. He’s not mad, and he’s trying his best to get that across when the best thing they have to work with is tone. Her ears flatten, but she stands up, and gently grabs what she was laying on: his journal.

“Thank you,” Barry says, taking it when she drops it into her lap. He flips though it—everything seems fine, so why…

He stops when he comes to a page covered in twirling dark lines. There’s two distinct lines, one starting at the bottom of the page, and one at the top, though they meet up in the middle where it’s impossible to tell which is which. The line at the top is a bit darker than the other, like the pencil was pressed down with more force.

“Did you…?” he asks, tilting the picture towards Lup. She nods, and her tail flicks behind her—he’s pretty sure she’s nervous. “Lup, this is—you made this? All of it?” He wants to _hug_ her, because this is! Lup drew this! A _dragon_ drew this! “I love it,” he says, putting all the awe and pride he can into the statement, so even if Lup doesn’t know the words, she can get the meaning.

Lup preens, and Barry reaches out to rub the scales just above her nose. “Who is it?” he asks, pointing to the two lines.

Lup moves around him, so she can better see her art, and taps the lighter of the two lines. “You,” she says, and then the other, “me.”

“I’m going to frame this,” Barry decides. She drew _him!_ It’s—they might not be able to say the words, yet, but this is the clearest declaration of friendship he thinks he’s ever gotten. She wants to meet him somewhere in the middle—as though she’s twirling down from the sky to greet him on the ground. Barry wonders, briefly, what it would be like to fly. “Unless you want to keep it?” he offers the journal to Lup, but she shakes her head, nosing it back to him.

“You,” she says, and then she tilts her head. She growls out another word, her ears twitching. “You,” she says again, and she taps the art, and then bumps her head against Barry.

“You made it for me,” Barry says, hushed. He clutches the journal close to his chest, and Lup purrs. “I’ll treasure this forever,” he tells her, standing up. “But I really have to go, now, it’s…” he glances up to the moon. “Well. It’s really late.”

Lup snorts, nosing him in the direction of the exit, and Barry laughs. “I know, I know,” he says. Lup made him a gift, and Barry’s going to cry when he gets home and can think about it some more. And then he’s going to start working on Lup’s tailfin, because she deserves a gift back. He’s going to finish it tonight. He knows she’ll leave, but that’s…

He’s going to miss her. But he wants her free, and he has this, now, to remember her by.

“Goodnight, Lup,” he says, taking care to get her name as right as he can, and Lup trills a goodbye of her own after him.

* * *

The tailfin is easier to make than Barry was expecting. It still takes him all night and into the morning, but he gets out of dragon training by telling Davenport it’s a new weapon he’s working on, which means he doesn’t have to fight a Nadder, which is all the better. By afternoon, he’s done the final step of attaching everything, and he stares at his finished product.

It’s a dark brown, because he didn’t feel the need to dye the leather, and Lup’s scales aren’t just pure black, and he’s got no idea how to replicate the red sheen they have to them, so he didn’t bother to try. It would take time he doesn’t have. The tailfin itself is about as thick as her actual tailfin, though he was just eyeballing that one, so it’s not entirely accurate. There are thin metal pieces in the middle to mirror the ridges in Lup’s tailfin—if he ever does this again, he’d want Lup there so he could make everything line up, but it’s not like he can sneak Lup into his forge without her being almost certainly killed. From there, the tailfin is attached to a long metal rod, that’s attached to the strap he made, out of the softest leather he had to hopefully prevent it from chafing. It’ll attach to her tail with a little loop, that works like a belt does. It fans in and out smoothly when he tries, and Barry grins at his handiwork.

He could put off giving it to Lup. She doesn’t know about it, and if Barry was a better Viking, he’d never give her flight back—he’d leave her grounded so she’d be easier to kill, later.

Barry snorts. Good thing he’s an awful Viking, then. He closes the tailfin up, stops by his house to drop off all his tailfin sketches in his room, and pauses to look at the art Lup made for him, of him and her together.

Fuck, he hopes this works. Lup deserves it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do NOT ask me how lup held a pencil and then managed to draw with it. i don't know. barry was asleep for a long time and missed the series of antics as she tried to get the pencil to work, and then was so excited when she drew her first line that she did fall backwards into the pond. 
> 
> okay gang next chapter in like a week.


	7. lup returns to the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a normal visit up until Lup feels her tailfins balance out again, and well, she's going to get herself back into the sky no matter how flimsy it might be.

Lup’s not really sure why she even bothers to fish, at this point. It’s more effort than it’s worth, and Barry just brings her fish, and anyways, she’s gone longer without much food. But she doesn’t have anything better to do but sit around and wait, so she plunges her head into the pond, snapping at the tiny fish that flit by her jaws. She catches none of them, and tugs her head back out with a disgruntled snort.

She wants to do something else. She wants to talk to Barry again—she’s getting a bit of a handle on his human language, if she combines his sounds with the body language she’s pretty sure he doesn’t know he’s projecting. She knew enough yesterday to figure out that he has a father, Davenport, and a sibling, Lucretia. And he knew enough to know she has a brother named Taako.

And then…her wings shiver with joy when she thinks about the art he accepted from her. Barry hadn’t ever fallen asleep, while he was here, and his journal was already half fallen out—of course she had to take it! And Barry drew her a picture she can look at whenever she wants, so she drew him a picture he could take with him. And he accepted it! Lup purrs to herself, rubbing a paw over her ear-flaps to clean them.

If only Taako was here, and she could fly, things would be perfect. Taako would like Barry, she thinks. Taako would be fascinated like she is with a human that can speak, with a human that isn’t cruel, with a human that makes art with his paws and made Lup want to make art, too.

“Lup!” Barry singsongs, and Lup perks up, hopping to her paws and spinning to see Barry climbing his way down his rocks, and he has! A whole! Thing of fish! She bounces on her paws before she charges for him, because Barry’s cool and won’t care.

“Fish!” she chirps, and Barry laughs, setting the barrel down and tipping it over. There are _so many fish,_ is the thing, and she bumps herself against him before she starts nosing around in the pile. Or, that’s what she is going to do, but she catches the scent of something sharp, and hisses, cringing back when she sees the yellow-black body of an eel.

“What is it?” Barry asks, a simple statement she can understand. She hisses again at the eel, and Barry grabs it, tossing it away. “Sorry,” he says, and something else after, but Lup can’t understand it, and she’s too excited to start eating all the fish Barry’s gifted her with.

“No more, they’re poison,” Lup says, muffled through her mouthful of fish. Barry doesn’t answer her, and she’s not entirely sure where he is, but that’s okay. She trusts him: they’ve both fallen asleep with the other as lookout. She snaps down a fish that tastes tangy, purring to herself. Barry is a very good friend. Everyone should have a Barry in their lives.

Well, no, Lup likes having Barry to herself. Someone _like Barry,_ but not Barry, because he comes to the ravine to spend time with Lup, and she likes it, that way. She likes learning his language as he learns hers, and she snaps up another one of those tangy fish with a happy thrum in her heart.

Lup’s nearly through the pile when she feels something…tight, on her tail, for lack of a better word. But that’s not all—there’s. Lup wiggles, fanning out her tailfin, spreading her wings. She hasn’t felt balanced in forever, though she knows it can’t be more than a month or two, but…

She is! Her tailfins match, and she crouches before she takes off into the air with a wordless cry of joy. She slaps her tail against the ground to get an extra boost, she catches the air and she _flaps,_ climbing higher than she’s managed to get. There’s wind under her wings and she’s got two tailfins, again, and she can get home and find Taako and bring him back to introduce him to Barry!

But she’s losing altitude, and fast—she struggles and beats her wings harder, but her tailfin is off again, and she can only control the one, despite knowing that there’s something on the other side. Maybe...maybe she was mistaken? Tailfins don’t grow back, she knows, but—

Her tailfins balance out and she’s shooting up and up and up, climbing higher and higher, out of her cage and into the sky. She’s aiming for the clouds, to taste rainwater, to feel the wind howl like a roar in her ears, and laugh at the sky because here, here, this is her home! To dance and spiral and fly, to chase the wind and go and go and _go,_ farther and farther until she can’t see sky or ocean or land.

She veers left, and Lup, always one to follow her whims, goes with it, the air a familiar coolness all around her, like an old friend. She dives down, tucking her wings and tailfin in close, and hears the whistle of wind in her ear-flaps, a whistle that means _speed_ and _go._ It’s the best kind of whistle, Lup thinks. She pulls out of her dive just before she hits the ocean, throwing her wings out with a roar as she skims over the water, finally back where she belongs.

She should probably go tell Barry what’s up, though. Let him when to expect her back. It’s a bit of a struggle to climb back up, at first, but she manages it, spiraling high until she can see the ravine, and diving, this time towards it. She goes in to find Barry, flying low over the pond, but doesn’t see him—where is he?

There’s a cheer of “yes!” and then some other noises that are _pride,_ and Lup flips her head upside down to stare at her tail from underneath her, and she sees Barry, clinging loosely onto her with one hand, the other one pumped up in the air. Lup rolls her eyes, fond, and whips her tail to the left, sending him tumbling off and into the pond. Lup chirrs laughter—she’s sure Barry had fun up in the sky.

“Gonna find Taako!” she yells, and keeps going to the ravine wall, trying to climb up and back into the sky—but her tailfin’s unbalanced again, and she can’t get it to work. With a yelp, she loses her grip in the air, and tumbles into the pond, a rather abrupt crash-landing.

Lup shakes herself, spinning to see her tail as she flicks it up and out of the water. She has the one tailfin, the same black as the rest of her scales, but the other one…it’s not black. It’s a dark brown, and it’s heavy and sodden with water.

That’s. She should’ve expected that one. She knows tailfins don’t grow back. And Barry was on her tail, so…

“Barry?” she says, and she spins to find her friend, standing excited and proud. She splashes her way over to him, pressing hard against his shoulder, sending him toppling into the water. He laughs and pushes her back, but she doesn’t go anywhere. “What is this?” she asks, showing him her tail.

Barry’s eyes go bright, and he begins to explain, in words and gestures. Lup thinks she gets the gist of it: he wanted to give her a new tailfin. A made tailfin, but he can make things like that, and he wanted her to be free. Something seizes in Lup’s chest with a strength she’s never known before, and she’s overcome with _gratitude,_ with _hope,_ with—with—something else she doesn’t know how to describe, but it’s there and powerful and she just wants to grab Barry and never, ever let him go.

“Thank you,” she breathes, and she mashes her face against his chest, purring so loud Barry’s practically shaking with it. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re just…” she takes a step back, and looks at Barry, who’s smiling softly at her. He scratches beside one of her ear-flap, and she purrs louder. “You’re so _good._ ” She tells him, and she lifts up her tail to stare at the tailfin he made, touching her nose to the surface of it.

Barry must’ve been the one helping her fly, up there. The one making sure her tailfins were balanced, and realizing that sends a whole new wave of emotions over Lup. She scrambles out of the pond to roar and shoot blasting-fire at the walls of the ravine, shrieking her glee and giddiness. They flew _together,_ up there, and Lup wants to do it again. She wants to fly, again, yes. She’s wanted that since day one.

A hand touches her side, and she leans into it, into Barry. She wants Barry up there with her, she realizes. She wants to fly and dance in the sky, and she wants to do it all with Barry, and she doesn’t know what that means for her but her heart is light and everything is going to be _better,_ she knows.

Lup stretches her wings, looking up at the sky. _Soon,_ she tells herself, and she turns to Barry, grinning dopily at him and also not really caring about how stupid she might look. “I want you with me,” she tells him, and wishes they were better at knowing each other languages. So she shows him—she lays down, and calls, “c’mere,” lowering a wing so he can climb on.

“Lup?” Barry says, startled. “You…” he trails off when Lup just snorts at him, but he doesn’t move. Well, this isn’t working. Lup stands, and charges for Barry, who yelps and barely manages to dodge her. She grins, hopping up and flapping her wings into something like a low hover for a second, landing on a higher rock.

“We need to talk more,” she says, “there’s so many things I want to tell you! But I don’t think you get it all.” She tilts her head, flares out her ear-flaps, and swings her tail around to fan out her tailfin. “This could work,” she says, “this will work!”

“Yeah,” Barry says, and she doesn’t know how much he’s understanding, but he smiles up at her, climbs up to stand beside her. He tugs a little on the brown tailfin, pulling it fully out, and Lup watches him with a tilt to her head. “I think…” he trails off, and Lup squints at the glint in his eyes, like he’s just got an amazing idea.

Lup pokes at him with her nose. Barry gives her a pat, and slides down the rock.

“Later,” he says, shaking some of the water out of his hair. Lup tilts her head, considers. “Bye,” he says, and Lup starts, at that—what? He came late, today, and it’s barely been more than an hour!

“Barry!” Lup calls, hopping down from her rock and bounding in front of him, blocking his way back. “It’s barely been an hour; you have to stay.”

“Tailfin, Lup,” is Barry’s explanation. Oh. That makes sense, he wants to work more on the tailfin. Lup turns to look at it. She wants to fly again, yes, but it’s not going to happen overnight. Whatever idea Barry has, combined with the fact that she wants them to fly together…that’s going to take time, and a better understand of language than either of them possess, now.

Lup shakes her head. “I’d rather you be here,” she says, gesturing with her tail. Barry frowns, like he wants to protest, but Lup’s having none of it. Flying’s put her in an antsy mood—she wants to fly more, but she can’t have that, and usually her next best option is wrestling with Taako. But he’s not here, either, which leaves Barry, and Lup’s willing to wrestle Barry if it’ll make him stay longer.

“Lup,” Barry says, wary, when Lup drops into a crouch. She grins at him, before she pounces, and Barry just manages to dart out of the way. From there, it’s more of a chasing-game, her chasing and Barry fleeing. He’s actually decent at it, to start, until he has to collapse and regain his breath, which puts a bit of a damper on their game. But it’s a good time to practice speaking, and they talk until the sun goes down, about nothing really, but this is the best way they have to learn, so they’re sticking with it.

Lup tackles Barry into the pond before he can leave, and Barry groans but splashes her back, and when they two of them finally climb out an hour later, Barry’s shivering, and Lup blasts the ground to make a little spot for him to warm up by.

“Thank you, again,” she says, resting her head against Barry’s side, watching the tiny flames dance in front of her. Barry scratches behind her ear-flaps, soft, repetitive motions that send waves of happiness all throughout Lup, putting her half to sleep. She yawns, and Barry slumps against her, relaxing.

“You want to do it?” he asks. “Us flying? Together?”

“Yes,” Lup stresses, and she wraps her tail up around her nose to prove it. She _likes_ the tailfin Barry made for her. It’s not something she can control on her own, but it’s something that they could figure out _together,_ and Lup thinks that’s a pretty good compromise. Barry mutters to himself, words that she thinks have to do with how he made the tailfin in the first place, and he sometimes asks her to fan her own tailfin in or out, and she does so.

“Okay,” he says, and he presses closer to her side. Lup doesn’t mind. She’s used to stuff like this with Taako, and Barry’s nowhere near as annoying about it. His clothes—a new word Lup’s learned, another one of those weird human ones—are mostly dry, but Barry doesn’t have a fire burning in his chest like Lup does, and she’s willing to share it. “It might take a long time.”

“Assumed so,” Lup hums, her eyes drifting closed. “Glad I can talk to you.”

“Yeah,” Barry says, as Lup lets herself doze off, “yeah, Lup. Me too.”

* * *

Lup stretches, before moving to scratch her side against one of the large rocks, because itchy scales are the worst. She scrapes a few off in the process, but her side’s doing pretty good scale-wise, so she barely even notices. Barry, however, still here, picks one of them up, turning it over in his hands.

“Can I have this?” he asks, and Lup just nods. She doesn’t need her shed scales, that’s for sure, and she knows Barry won’t let anybody else have it. “Thanks,” he says, grabbing a few more and stuffing them into his pockets. “I have…” Lup isn’t able to understand the rest of what he says, so she just snorts and trots over to the pond, to see if there’s any lazy fish she’ll be able to catch.

She’s still not fully accepted the fact that Barry stayed with her all night, and when she woke, he was there, still asleep beside her. It’s…it almost feels like she’s broken some ancient law that claims _dragons and humans can’t be friends,_ but that’s stupid: obviously she and Barry are friends, and there’s nothing that prevented them from doing that. Just some kindness from each of them, and now Barry’s going to make her a tailfin.

Lup stops her fishing to admire her new tailfin. She loves it, despite how it doesn’t yet work. It’s like…it’s something she can have always, to look at and know yes, Barry’s her friend, and he’s going to stay her friend, because he’s going to help her fly again, and they’re going to see the world _together._ She’s been free of the king for so long, now—if she can get her flock free, somehow, then she and Barry and Taako and anyone else who wants to come can go and find the edge of the world.

Lup purrs. It’s a good plan, she has. She stands and moves over to Barry, bumping her head against his side.

“Hey, Lup,” he greets. He’s getting pretty good at pronouncing her name, though he sometimes winces after he says it, like now, so she thinks the growling might hurt him, a little. The best she’s managed to do with _Barry,_ though, makes it sound like hacking up a bone, so he’s better than her when it comes to that. Human words are…difficult. She’s getting good at understanding them, but she’s pretty sure she’ll never actually be able to speak them.

“Anyone missing you?” she asks, and Barry laughs, a half-startled sound.

“Going back is going to suck,” he says, and Lup chirps at the annoyance thick in his tone. “Questions,” he stresses, and Lup nods, understanding. If Barry was the one stuck on her nest, and she snuck out every day to visit him…well, Taako would’ve followed her out by the second day. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he says, “tailfin ideas, and all.”

“Tailfin ideas,” Lup echoes, and Barry laughs, pushing at her side.

“Soon as I can,” he promises again, as he starts to make his way over to the one exit. “Bye, Lup.”

“Bye, Barry!” Lup yells after him, pronouncing his name so horribly it breaks off into a cough halfway through. Barry laughs, but he’s got a grin on his face, and he stays standing at his still-stuck shield for a few moments more, before ducking under and heading back home.

Lup can’t wait to see what his next idea is, but until then…she’s got some practice to do.

She first messes around with her new tailfin. It’s flimsy, unable to keep its position unlike her real tailfin, which means flying without some way to keep it in position isn’t going to work. Barry will probably come up with a solution to that, though Lup isn’t sure how she’ll have control over her tailfin. She doesn’t mind if it’s something Barry’s going to have to control, she’ll just be glad to get back in the sky and useless to the king, but…

Barry doesn’t even know _how_ to fly. She’s going to have to teach him, if they’ll be flying together.

Lup nods to herself. She can do that.

She stretches her wings, turns to spreads the new tailfin out as far as it’ll go, and tries to fly. She can get a bit more height than she would without it, but it’s blown closed before she can get high enough to clear the ravine. And no matter how many times she tries—sitting on it to see if that’ll help it keep its shape, getting it wet—it always, always snaps shut before she can gain enough height.

She huffs, bumping her nose against it. “You’re gonna have to be better,” she tells it, flexing her wings before folding them back in, thumping down to her side. She rests a paw on her tail to keep it in place. “I’ve won every race I’ve ever had against Taako, and I don’t plan to stop now.”

The tailfin doesn’t answer. Lup snorts to herself, and moves over to the pond, narrowing her eyes to watch the fish. She’s got a new fishing strategy—she sees a fish flit by, and fires a blast at it, though the fish escapes. It’s a dumb way to fish, as the two fish she kills that way are charred and taste like _burnt,_ but it’s a decent way to pass the time, and Lup always likes her fire.

Barry comes back two days later, apologizing all the way, but he’s holding something Lup’s never in her life seen before, and she tilts her head, wiggling with her excitement.

“…Dav wouldn’t let me—oh!” Barry notices her eyeing the things he’s got tucked under his arm, and he holds it out for her. “This is a saddle,” he says, and Lup’s head tilts at the unfamiliar word. “It’s not a tailfin thing, exactly, but I need some way to sit on your back.” He approaches Lup with it, and she grins at him, her tail twitching. “It’s—hey! Lup!”

Lup darts away from Barry before he can try and put the saddle on, leaping up into her tree with a sharp sound of laughter. Barry runs after her, and Lup waits until he’s almost at the tree, before she spread her wings and leaps off it, catching the air for a second before she sets down, and then she’s running again, Barry chasing her all the way.

It’s a _fun_ game, and Lup’ll sit still eventually, but Barry left her for two days and this is his punishment, even if she understands. She runs until she’s tired of it, and she lets out a loud whine of defeat, overdramatic, and flops onto the ground, rolling onto her back with her wings splayed out on either side, sticking out her tongue as though she’s dead.

“Silly,” Barry tells her, the single word somehow full of such—such affection that Lup’s heart spins dizzy in her chest. Lup flips herself the right-way up to nuzzle against him, and Barry snorts, but he indulges her and scratches her side. “Can I?” he asks when she’s not bursting with every single sappy emotion she’s ever felt and is able to move away, holding up the saddle. Lup nods, standing still as he fastens it around her.

It’s surprisingly soft where it touches her scales, and the straps that keep it fastened around her wrap around her chest. She twists her head to sniff at them. It’s made of the same thing her new tailfin is—leather, as Barry called it.

“Okay?” Barry asks, worried, and Lup nods, bumping up against him. “Good,” he says, and then, “I lied. This is a tailfin thing.” He pulls out a long length of rope from his pocket, and he stretches it from the saddle all the way back to her tailfin, and Lup starts to understand.

She can’t wait to be back up in the sky, so she sits patient while Barry fiddles with her tailfin. Inside, though, she’s burning up, and when she looks back at Barry—he’s just as excited for this as she is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we have [fanart!!!](https://verdantelf.tumblr.com/post/190237057335/some-fanart-of-dragonlup-from-acaciapines-fic)!!!! it was made by [verdantelf](https://verdantelf.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, go shower their art with love and affection bc i super love it!!! the second i have the money to get it printed out in a good quality i will be doing that and putting it somewhere on my wall to stare at forever. 
> 
> next chapter comes out in like a week and is also, i'm pretty sure, the longest chapter.


	8. barry learns to fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry builds a tailfin and figures out how to fly.

Barry finishes the saddle in a day, though he does have to work most of the night—sewing hasn’t ever been his strong suit. But it’s soft and it should work just fine, and he’s made sure to leave a gap in the middle so it won’t crush any of Lup’s spines down her back, so. He’s pretty proud of it, himself. His idea for balancing the tailfin is a bit worse—he’s got a long bit of rope, and he knows he can attach it to the tailfin so when he pulls it, the tailfin should fan in or out. It’s…maybe not his greatest idea, but hey, if it doesn’t work, he’ll figure something else out.

Unfortunately, he can’t just run right off to Lup the second after he finishes, because of one very terrible thing called ‘dragon training.’ Barry’s the last one in the ring, trying not to be too obviously put-out—he doesn’t _want_ anybody suspecting anything, after all. But…dragon training is a lot harder when he knows that if he just tried, he could _talk_ to these dragons, and even if they aren’t human, they’re still intelligent beings. He doesn’t like watching everyone beat them up. Sure, none of them have died yet, but he’s watched weapons hit hard into scale, or slice the edges of wings.

Which…Barry can’t get everyone to stop hitting the dragons, he doesn’t think. He tells them about Lup, and not only will everyone be out trying to find her, he’ll also be thought crazy, and that’s going to do none of them good. But if he can figure out some way to get the dragons back in their cages without hurting them…

He skirts around the edges of the ring, keeping out of the spews of green Zippleback gas. He doesn’t want to be in it when it ignites, but the longer he doesn’t do anything, the higher than chances someone is going to hurt the Zippleback.

Lup said something about eels being poisonous, which. Barry’s not sure if she meant just to Night Furies, or to all dragons, but he does have an eel tucked into his pocket, uncomfortably lumpy against his leg. Again, not his best idea, but he’s trying to figure out how to fly with a dragon, so comparably, it’s actually pretty tame.

With a hissing spark, the gas is lit, exploding into flames. Barry ducks under the wash of heat, and the ring clears in time for him to see Angus attempt to throw a bucket of water over one of the Zippleback heads, only to be too little to actually hit. By the way none of the other kids have water, Barry’s assuming they all failed.

“Fuck this,” Magnus says, making a break for the weapons, and Barry springs into action, forcing his way in front of all the kids, clicking his tongue and growling as best he can. He’s trying to say _c’mere,_ how Lup does, to get the dragon’s attention, but even to his own ears, it sounds wrong. Hopefully he didn’t accidentally say anything rude.

Both heads of the Zippleback twist to face him, one opening their jaws to breath gas over him. Barry grabs the eel from his pocket and brandishes it as though it’s a sword.

The Zippleback hisses, and Barry nearly jumps when he realizes he can recognize the word: _poison._

“It sure is,” he says, low enough so nobody else can hear him. The dragon can’t understand him, Lup only can because they’ve spent so much time together, but it creeps backwards away from him. Barry advances on them, herding the dragon back to their cage, and the dragon doesn’t go willingly, not exactly, but they cower against the back wall of the cave, and Barry pushes the door shut and lets the log down to lock it. He’s not too sure what to do with the eel, so he puts that back in his pocket. Maybe he can use it again.

He rubs his slimy hands on his jeans, and turns to see everybody watching him.

“What did you do?” Angus asks, the first one to break the silence. “And _how_ did you do it, you didn’t have a weapon or anything!”

“Um,” Barry says. This wasn’t part of his plan. He was supposed to be able to leave and get back to Lup after this, not have to try and lie. “Dumb luck?”

“Was it scared of you?” Avi asks.

“Barry’s not scary, though,” Johann says, which, fair, but Barry still bristles a bit at that. Who’s the one who befriended a dragon, here? 

“Barry, I’m…” Davenport, too, is staring at him, which is honestly the worst possible thing that he could be doing. “I thought you just gave up on dragon training, that you weren’t ever going to apply yourself—”

“Are we really doing this in front of everybody?” Barry mutters, though not loud enough for Davenport to hear him. He doesn’t want to start an argument. He wants to get out of here, grab the saddle, and go see Lup.

“—but obviously I was wrong. Well done.” Davenport smiles at him, and oh, fuck, he’s got his Proud Voice and everything, which means he’s going to be very disappointed when he learns what Barry’s actually doing.

At least the dragon’s okay.

“Uh, yeah.” Barry nods, moving over to the exit. “Thanks. I have, uh, work to do, blacksmith stuff, so. Don’t wait up.”

He rushes out before anybody can ask him anymore questions, and then curses when he looks up at the sky. It’s already sunset. Great. He can’t go see Lup today, then, because he’s got no way to see in the dark and he’s not bringing a torch only to trip and set the entire forest on fire.

Tomorrow. First thing. Who cares if dragon-training is going on, Lup deserves her flight back and Barry is doing his best to give it to her.

He’s up bright and early the next morning, before even Davenport, and he hastily eats breakfast before grabbing the saddle and rope and a few fish for Lup, and booking it to the ravine. Lup, thankfully, isn’t upset with him, though she does make him chase her around before she’ll finally stand still and let him put on the saddle. He tightens the straps, makes sure everything is comfortable for her, and gets to work attaching the rope. It doesn’t take as long as he thought it would, and when he stands, he tugs on it—pulling the rope fans out the tailfin, letting the rope slacken pulls the tailfin back in.

“What do you think?” he asks Lup, who sniffs at the rope in his hands. He lets her grab it when she tries, and she tugs it a few times, working the tailfin herself. She has to twist her head back and curve her tail towards her face, though, so she won’t be able to control it on her own, but it’s long enough for Barry to reach it where he’s sitting.

“Good,” she says, bumping her head against Barry and dropping the rope. “Hurry up! I want to be in the sky.”

It’s astonishing, still, that he can understand her so well. No, he’s still not really about to speak her language, other than a few basic things, but…it’s a _dragon language._ He and Lup can _talk to each other._ She wants to be his friend, despite the fact that he was the one to shoot her out of the sky and trap her here. He nearly tears up just thinking about it, staring at Lup’s who’s got her head tilted and ears pricked, watching him with concern in her eyes.

“…Barry?” she asks, pressing her nose to his hand. Barry absently scratches her, and she lets out a soft thrum like a purr. It’s the cutest thing Barry’s ever heard in his life.

“Sorry,” he says, and he rubs at his eyes with his free hand. “It’s just—I shot you down and you’re still my friend. I…” He stares down at the tailfin he made, dark brown where her scales are black and sparkling with a deep red in the early sun. 

“You’re fixing that,” Lup says, softly. “Maybe you did a bad thing. But you’re helping me _now._ And that’s good.” She lowers her head to grab the rope in her jaws, and drops it into Barry’s hands. “I want this,” she says. “I want you with me.”

Barry probably misheard that last thing. Lup must notice his shock at it, the way he freezes, because she laughs in that chirping way she does, taking a step back and spreading her wings as though she wants to leap into the sky and stay there forever.

“Wouldn’t lie to you,” she says, and cocks her head. “C’mere.”

And who is Barry to not obey? If Lup really wants this, well. Barry’s not about to let himself be the one to keep her from the sky. He walks over to her, and she folds her wing back so he can put one foot in the stirrup and swing his leg over, settling himself into the saddle. It’s…not uncomfortable. There’s enough space between Lup’s spines that he can sit between them, and not crush any. He’s just in front of her wings, so he shouldn’t mess them up at all.

“Are you okay?” he asks, resting a hand on Lup’s neck. She cranes her head back to look at him, a little grin on her jaws.

“It’s weird,” she says. “Good-weird. You’re heavy.” She jumps, a little, her wings flapping as she hops backwards, and Barry holds on tight. It’s…weird, Lup’s right. He can faintly feel the muscles of her wings when she flaps, the movement of her paws when she steps. He tugs the rope, and glances back to see the tailfin fan out. Lup takes a breath, and fans out her own, crouching down and adjusting her wings.

“Anything I need to know?” Barry asks, ducking down over the saddle like that’s going to help him stay on.

“Follow my lead!” Lup calls, and leaps into the air with a _whoosh_ of air from the stroke of her wings, going straight up. Barry keeps one hand firmly fisted in the saddle, but looks behind him to try and watch her tailfin—everything is exhilarating and he can feel wind buffeting him from every side, but he needs to keep the tailfin balanced.

He’s also _in the sky._ He’s flying—well, Lup is, and he’s mostly just along for the ride—but he’s flying! Lup roars out a cheer, and spins in the air, Barry yelping when he nearly slides off her back, but he manages to regain his grip. Lup dives back down, and Barry lets his grip on the rope slacken so the tailfin fans in some. She throws her wings out wide when they’re back over the ravine, gliding.

“Left!” Lup yells, and Barry’s got no idea what she means, but he tugs the rope and they make a sharp left, and holy shit, it’s working! Lup’s flying, and he hasn’t yet died! Barry cheers, punching at the air in his excitement.

Which. Brings the rope along with him, and the tailfin snaps out too wide, and Lup shrieks as she flies off-course abruptly, leading to Barry losing his grip and sliding right off the saddle and, thankfully, into the pond.

He paddles in place, watching Lup as she skids against the ground in her landing, groaning when she comes to a stop. She shakes herself, wings folding back in as she glances over at Barry.

“Your fault,” she calls to him, and Barry just sticks out his tongue. It _worked,_ is the thing. They could do this. He just has to attach himself to the saddle, somehow, so he doesn’t fall off next time.

“I’ll fix it,” he says, swimming his way over to where Lup is, climbing out. “Can I take off the tailfin? The rope might get annoying, for you.”

She glances down at the tailfin, tapping her tail against the ground. The rope is tangled near her back paws, but she steps out of it easily enough. Barry lets her think as he works on unfastening the saddle, since he’ll need to make edits to that. The rope worked well enough, he thinks. He’ll need some way to know what to do without looking backwards, though…and he probably shouldn’t have the rope in his hands, in case he makes the same mistake again.

Lup shakes herself when he pulls the saddle off, and stretches out, back arching. “Can you just take off the rope?” she asks, and Barry nods. The tailfin is for Lup, anyways, he doesn’t mind if she wants to keep it on. He unties the rope, tosses that onto the saddle.

“It shouldn’t take long,” he tells her, “I’ll be back later today, I think.”

“Good,” Lup says, and she glares at him when Barry flicks water onto her scales.

He is, it turns out, able to come back later that day. His grand idea of ‘get some flexible bits of wire, attach them to a hoop, attach that to a hook on the saddle at one end, and then a belt I make for me to wear at the other end’ works near-perfectly, and doesn’t even take him that long, to boot.

He’s back with Lup before late afternoon, though it does take him sneaking out to avoid Lucretia, who nearly catches him and Barry’s got no way to explain the saddle, not at all. He’s sure she’s suspicious, but Barry also can’t bring himself to care.

Lup’s bouncing around him when Barry brings the new saddle, standing as still as she can while Barry fastens it around her. He climbs on, hooks himself onto the saddle, tugs at the wire—plenty flexible, so it should work. He starts tying the rope around his foot, when Lup blinks and stares at him.

“Why are you doing that?” she asks, gesturing with her head as best she can towards the rope.

Barry finishes his knot, and moves his foot to show Lup how it works. Forwards, and the tailfin comes out, backwards, and it fans back in. “So I won’t forget I’m holding it like last time,” he explains.

“That’s a dumb idea,” Lup tells him, but doesn’t push the issue further. “Let’s stay low? To be safe?”

She wants to go high, Barry thinks. That’s where she went when he first attached the tailfin, and the second time they flew—but maybe she just doesn’t want him to die before they figure this out. “Okay,” Barry says, and up they go, clearing the edge of the ravine, climbing high enough to skim the tops of trees. Using his foot works a bit better, and he tries not to look back as much—Lup swats at him with an ear when she wants him to fan the tailfin out more.

It’s not quite as exhilarating as those first two times, but it’s still flying, and Barry doesn’t fall off when Lup makes a sharp turn, something he counts as a success. He doesn’t fall of for quite a long time, actually. He’s with Lup every day, making small edits to the saddle, trying to make his rope idea a bit better, as she nudges at him when he’s trying to adjust straps, and tries teaching him how her tailfin works, though it’s slow going when the words don’t really translate into Human. But the days pass and they get better, and by the end of the week they’ve got a pretty good system going: Barry knows the very basics, Lup swats at him for anything he happens to miss.

Barry’s pretty sure he’s never going to get tired of flight. That tugging in his chest, the brief feeling of weightlessness when Lup takes off, the knowledge that he’s going somewhere no human ever has before—well, add in the fact that he’s doing all of it with Lup, and there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing.

He’s thinking hard on that, near the end of the week, Lup keeping in a tight circuit as they try turns. An ear twitching snaps him out of his thoughts, and he lets the rope slacken. It doesn’t, like it usually does, help Lup turn—instead she yelps and goes down in a field of grass in a crash.

“I didn’t hit you!” she calls, but Barry’s a bit more focused on the fact that the wire attaching him to Lup is currently snapped. So. Make that stronger, then. It lasted them a good while.

“Saw your ear twitch, sorry,” Barry says, pushing himself up to go climb back onto Lup. The rope, too, has slipped from around his foot, but he thinks this might work. He’ll need a better wire, and he knows Lup was right about the foot thing being a little dumb—it’s not going to last them much longer, not if they want to do more. But pulling the rope won’t work, either. He's got half an idea rattling around about something attached to the saddle itself, but no clue yet how to make it work. 

He hears Lup purring, and looks up to see her sprawled out in the grass, rolling on her back with her wings thrown out. He blinks.

“Uh,” he says, and Lup opens her eyes to squint at him happily.

“It’s,” a word he doesn’t know, but can guess is the grass she’s rolling in. “It’s fun!”

“I’m not going to roll around in grass,” Barry protests, but Lup springs to her paws before he’s even finished the sentence, tackling him to the ground with a purr. She rubs her face into the grass, flopping onto her side, one of her wings half-draped over Barry.

“Yes, you are,” Lup says, still purring, warm and obviously having a great time. Barry’s not a dragon, but…

He doesn’t roll around in the grass, but he does lay back in it. It’s got a sweet smell to it, according to Lup, but he doesn’t smell anything, and she prods at him with a paw and laughs about his terrible human nose. Barry’s inclined to agree.

Lup sprinkles mouthfuls of grass over him, since he won’t _have a good time rolling around,_ but Barry’s happy just watching Lup. Wings stretched out, eyes closed in pure bliss—it’s enough to make him feel all fuzzy inside, and not because of the grass, he’s pretty sure. It’s just…Lup.

Is it crazy to say that a dragon is his best friend?

“Barry, Barry!” Lup calls, and she bounds over to him, dropping a half-eaten rabbit directly onto his chest. Barry stares down at it, cross-eyed. “I caught a rabbit! It’s kinda furry, but it’s the first thing I’ve had in forever that wasn’t just fish!” She sits down across from him, and pushes the rabbit towards him with a claw. “Do you guys eat rabbits? I don’t get human diets.”

“No, we do,” Barry says, and he pushes himself up, gingerly taking the bloodied rabbit and moving it onto the grass. “And we do eat fish, I’ve told you, just not raw. We cook them. Uh, burn them, for you.”

“Oh,” Lup says, and she stands. Green gas gathers in her mouth, and she blasts a small bit of fire onto the rabbit. It blackens instantly. “Okay! There you go.”

“Okay, so, not this cooked,” he says. “We have a whole process. We skin them first. And cook them, but it’s over a long time and for—nevermind. Thank you for the rabbit, but I really can’t eat it, I’d just get sick.”

“So just a little bit burnt, got it,” Lup says. She snatches up the leftover rabbit, swallowing it in a bite. “Ugh, awful. Your diets are so weird.”

“Yeah, humans have weak stomachs,” Barry says, tugging at the straps of her saddle in silent question: _do you want to go?_ Lup licks her lips and nudges Barry, before ducking under him to toss him onto her back, so, that answers that question. He laughs as he grabs the rope, retying it around his leg so they can get back to the ravine. They’ve practiced enough so he knows how far out the tailfin has to be for Lup to get into the air, and she leaps to the wind in a second, drifting lazily on the low breeze.

It only takes a few minutes to get to the ravine, Lup setting down and Barry sliding the loop of rope off his foot before hopping down beside her. Lup lifts her head so he can get the straps of the saddle around her chest.

“What’s next?” she asks.

“Stronger wire,” Barry says, “and something better than my foot, to control the rope. I have an idea but I’m going to need to make a new tailfin.”

“Hmm,” Lup says, and Barry pulls the saddle off of her. “How would the new one work?”

“I’d attach the rope to the saddle,” Barry says, holding it out and indicating the left stirrup, same side as Lup’s missing tailfin. “Something here, and then I’d be able to…move my foot so the tailfin would slide in and out? I’m still working on that. Anything you want me to add?”

“We need a better way to communicate,” Lup says. “It’s too loud to talk, a lot of the time, and slapping you isn’t working. When you finish it, I’m gonna show you all the stuff my tailfin does, in way more depth than I already have, so you know when to fan it out or in and how far either way.”

“Good idea,” Barry agrees, and he moves over to Lup’s tail. “I’ll need the old tailfin, though—is that okay?”

Lup rumbles out an anxious sound, but nods. “You’ll make it better?”

“Promise,” Barry says, and Lup sits back to let him take it off.

* * *

The next weeks are a whirlwind of trying to figure out how to get his saddle idea to work, trying to keep the dragons from getting hurt in dragon training, and trying to keep anybody from following him. In dragon training, he knocks a Gronckle out with some of that sweetgrass Lup liked—apparently, Gronckles like it, too. A Nadder chases him around the ring until he manages to hiss out enough slurred Draconic, as he’s uncreatively dubbed Lup’s language, to convince the Nadder he’s not a threat, and to get them back into their cage. The kids follow him around and beg to know how he does it—Angus and Lucretia always watch him weird, when he manages to slip away, and he knows they’re suspicious.

But the time he’s not holed up in the forge or avoiding everyone that wants to talk to him, now that he’s doing great at dragon training, he’s with Lup.

“I want to free the ring dragons,” he tells her, while trying on the new saddle he’s made to check that it fits. The saddle is going well, and he’s got the idea of gears to run the rope along, and attach to the tailfin, but he has to actually make the tailfin. Lup tilts her head, lifting a paw so he can better fit the gear around it.

“It fits,” she tells him, moving around. The gear sits snugly around her shoulder, and Lup can move her wings without any difficultly. “You should free them, then,” she adds, about what he said before.

“I will when I figure out _how,”_ Barry says, slumping against Lup. Thank the gods it worked. “But right now I want to make this. I just—I’m trying to defeat the dragons without actually hurting them, do you have any tips?”

“Sweet spots?” Lup offers. “Like, under my chin and on the side of my face is always a nice place to be scratched, and because it’s you, I’m okay to just kinda conk out like that.” She brushes her head against him, and Barry scratches both, first the side of her face, then under her chin—and Lup rumbles with a purr and practically becomes putty, her eyes squinting as she slumps to the ground, tugging Barry a bit closer to her by wrapping her tail around him.

Barry stares at his hands, and doesn’t notice when Lup cracks open an eye and tackles him to the ground.

“Hey—Lup!” he protests, as she noses at him. He bats at her to no avail. “Get off!”

“Not until I find _your_ sweet spots,” she counters, and proceeds to nose him all over until he’s laughing and unable to stop, and Lup preens above him, looking very, very proud of herself. Barry can’t even bring himself to care, and he wraps his arms around Lup in a hug once she lets him up. She’s warm against him, and her scales aren’t rough, but smooth, and she’s just!

Lup looks down at him with a grin that promises chasing to come, and Barry darts out of the way before Lup can pin him again, scrambling behind a rock before she can see where he is. Lup’s got a great sense of smell, so she’s got that advantage, but Barry has something he brought on a whim, and also because he’s always willing to test his luck.

He pulls out the metal hammer he brought, and the metal catches the light—with it, he’s able to throw a reflected light into the ravine, one that Lup sees and pounces after. It’s a fun game, to watch Lup slam her paws down onto the light and roar in fury when she hasn’t pinned it down, but Lup figures out that he’s the one casting the light a minute later, and steals the hammer right out of his hands.

“That’s _cheating,”_ she says, as if he’s committed some grave mistake, and throws the hammer into the pond. Barry swings himself onto her back before she can snap at him and grab his arm in her toothless mouth. Lup laughs and drops, rolling onto her back and trapping Barry under a wing.

“This also feels like cheating,” Barry says, muffled and unable to see in the dark of her wing. Lup snorts, the sound a rumble when he’s tucked so close to her, and pokes her head under her wing. Barry pats her nose.

“Now, see, nothing’s cheating when you cheated first,” she says, sticking out her tongue, a mannerism she must’ve learned from Barry, because it’s the first time he’s ever seen her, or any dragon, do it. He’s seized by some strong emotion around the heart, as if it’s taken him and thrown him right into this moment, everything amplified. He pushes Lup’s wing off of him, and she lets him, though she’s entirely curled around him and Barry’s almost certain there’s no way he can escape.

“I’m pretty sure you’re my best friend,” Barry says, and finds that he’d be okay to stay like this forever, actually.

Lup croons. “You’re mine too,” she says, and grins, bumping her head to his chest. “Now hurry up and make me a new tailfin so we can go flying.”

* * *

Barry finishes the tailfin a week later. He’s already somehow become the best there is at dragon training, if only because he can get the dragons back in their cages before anybody else can even hit them. He scratches the Monstrous Nightmare where Lup showed him, pushing aside his fear that the dragon might set themself on fire, and they go down purring, just like she did. Magnus, who had been charging at them with an ax, stumbles to a stop, and just stares at him.

Barry leaves before anybody can ask him any questions, stopping by the forge to grab Lup’s new and improved tailfin. He’s halfway in the woods to her when he stumbles across Lucretia, who’s leaned up against a tree, drawing something in her journal. She stares up at him, and blinks.

Barry pretends like he’s not holding a tailfin, and like Lucretia isn’t there, and continues on into the woods, making a wrong turn and ducking behind a tree to make sure Lucretia isn’t following him. She does a little bit, standing and making her way after him, but she stops before she gets to the tree he’s hiding behind, and frowns. Barry holds his breath, too terrified to breathe, until Lucretia turns around and goes back. He stays hiding for another ten minutes before creeping the rest of the way to the ravine.

The new tailfin attaches perfectly, and Barry’s up on Lup’s back the second he’s done, testing it out. He can adjust his foot in the stirrup to adjust the tailfin, and Lup grins and takes off into the sky, Barry keeping the tailfin fanned out wide. They land in on a windy cliffside, for the next part of this plan: Lup teaching him what her tailfin does, and what positions he’ll need to slide it into. Barry ties a long rope around a tree, making sure to knot it tightly, and then the other end is attached to the saddle.

He already knows the position to start flight, so he marks that one down. Lup teaches him the one to dive down, and go to either direction, before the rope snaps while she’s explaining gliding, sending the two of them flying backwards and into a tree.

Barry tries to push himself up, only to find that he’s still attached to the saddle by the wire, and it’s stretched out as far as it can go, making him trapped. Lup stands and shakes herself, and Barry can’t even get his feet on the ground. Lup looks down at him, a gleam in her eyes.

“Lup, no, please—” Barry tries, struggling to reach over her and unhook the loop from the hook, but Lup just laughs and drags him around and around, until he manages to finally free himself, and slump into an ungrateful heap on the dirt floor.

“Gotcha,” Lup croons, thumping her head in his lap, eyes alight with simple joy.

Barry wants more than anything to fly with her. To do more than the low test-flights they’ve done, but to climb high like they did that first time, when Lup didn’t even know he was hitching a ride. He wants to soar, with her. He wants to see the world like Lup sees it, from high above, with wind all around him.

He stands, and Lup watches him as he swings himself back onto her, double-checking that his cheat sheet of various tail positions is still attached to the saddle. Lup’s told him everything important. He’s learned this, before—he doesn’t know it all by heart yet, but he’s getting pretty close. They could go up there right now, and Barry trusts Lup to keep him safe.

“This is crazy,” Barry says, “but do you want to go flying right now? For real? None of this test stuff, but out over the ocean, and just…see what happens?”

“ _Yes,”_ Lup says, thrumming with it. Barry fans her tailfin open, and she leaps into the air and up and up they climb. She doesn’t go quite to the clouds, but she gets close, before she levels out and starts heading for the ocean. The island is _tiny,_ from this high up, so small and contained. Is that really where Barry’s spent his entire life? Stuck _there?_ On a place so small, when it comes to the ocean he can see as far as he looks?

He wants to see more, he thinks. And with Lup…the two of them could see the _world._

He tucks the tailfin in, slightly, as Lup veers left, before he pulls it in all the way and they dive. Lup’s wings are tucked in tightly, and there’s something in Barry’s chest like weightlessness. It’s _amazing!_ He cheers, though he keeps himself low on the saddle so the wind can more easily get around him, and Lup joins in with a roar of her own, spreading her wings wide just before they hit water, and tilting so one wing skims in the water, sending up a little shower of droplets.

It’s a bit of a dangerous path, they’ve chosen—spires of rocks that tower out of the water, some tall and narrow, some flat and wide, and Barry can imagine that they’d be good for sunbathing. But everything about this is dangerous, everything about this is something new and never-before-tried. They fly under one of the arched spires, and Barry looks up to see seagulls, cawing. Beneath him, Lup’s thrumming with an energy he’s never felt before—something that’s like the exhilaration coursing through his own veins.

“Okay,” Barry whispers, and he glances down to his cheat sheet. Sharp turns are—he moves his foot back, a little, and Lup zips left around one spire, but he’s not able to correct it in time for another turn, and she slams hard into the next rock spire. Lup shakes herself, and Barry tries for the next turn, but again, Lup crashes into a spire.

She slaps him with an ear. “Up,” she says, and she beats her wings a bit harder than she maybe needs to.

“Sorry, sorry,” Barry says, and corrects himself, so Lup can climb up and over the final spire, and then keep climbing, straight up and to the clouds. Lup bursts through the clouds and up into the great blue that’s above them. Wind tugs at Barry from all directions, his hair a wild mess on his head, and he looks down to the cheat sheet, only—

“No!” he says, as the cheat sheet is yanked out-of-place by the wind, and he lets go of the saddle to desperately try and grab for it, twisting as the wind tries to blow it out of reach.

“What are you doing?!” Lup cries, reaching the peak of her height before she starts to fall back down. Barry manages to snag the cheat sheet, nearly fumbling, but when he looks, it’s to see that oh, fuck, the straps keeping him to the saddle have come unhooked with this height. For a brief second, he’s not moving—suspended in the air—but then reality catches back up to him and he’s plummeting.

“Lup!” Barry yells, reaching out to try and grab something, anything, but she’s too far away, and she’s being spun by the wind as she struggles to reach him. He can see the tailfin—it’s being bounced around by the wind, so there’s really no way for Lup to move towards him.

“Stay—I’m gonna—” he’s hit in the face by one of Lup’s flailing wings, but it hits him the _right_ direction, and he snags one of the straps of the saddle, holding on tightly. They’re still falling, and they’re falling towards the island, but Barry can’t panic about that, can’t fret—he has to get himself attached again. He shoves one corner of the cheat sheet in his mouth, and uses his now-free hand to grab his wire, and hook it back onto the saddle.

Lup shrieks, throwing her wings out wide as they fall. They’re righted, now, just above the forest, but they’re going faster, faster than Barry’s ever gone before. The trees are so close he could reach down and touch them, and when he grabs the cheat sheet, the wind is too fierce for him to read it, the paper being buffeted every which-way by the wind.

“This isn’t gonna work for long!” Lup yells, her voice nearly impossible to hear over the roar of wind, and Barry sees what she means in a heartbeat: they’re nearing the end of the forest and the island, and if he doesn’t do something, they’re going to crash into a rock spire.

He can’t read the cheat sheet. His heart is more fear than blood. Lup can’t fly without his help, and if he doesn’t do anything—

He throws the cheat sheet into the air, and bends low over the saddle. He doesn’t need it. He can’t see it, and Lup told him what her tailfin does—her words echo in his mind as he pushes his foot back as far as it will go, to snap the tailfin out wide. Lup practically _purrs_ as she rights herself, and, with a quick adjustment, is turning sharply around the first of the many spires.

Wind whistles in his ear like a song, and Barry listens to it—in, out, up, turn—it’s like he and Lup are one in the same, in the moment, dodging a rock and spinning though a small gap between two more, before Lup’s wings are beating and up they climb, over a low rock and tilting sideways, splashing half into the water and under the narrow gap of another.

It’s nothing Barry’s ever felt before. It’s not like he’s reading Lup’s mind, not really, but it also _is_ like that—he feels her wings adjust and he adjusts his foot in turn, he can hear a thrumming of _yes yes yes high higher we’re doing it!_ despite Lup not speaking any words. Joy is heavy between the two of them, and Barry knows, in an instant, that this is the right thing to do. Any fear, any worries—he’s in between sky and ocean, and they’re rolling out of the way of the final rock, in a move Barry must’ve anticipated even though he doesn’t remember ever consciously moving his foot to do so.

It’s a rightness, he feels. Everything that led up to this moment, it’s a rightness. It’s the closest he’s ever felt to something nearing religious, and as they climb higher, leaving the rock spires behind to level out over the ocean, the sky clear in front of them…

_I love you_ , Barry thinks, or maybe says, he doesn’t know. But he does, he loves Lup and this and everything they’ve done together, and he wants to do it again. He wants to meet the brother Lup’s mentioned, he wants to see her home, he wants to see the world with her.

Lup purrs underneath him, a blend of _love_ and _joy_ and _again,_ and she spits a blast of flame in front of them. Even in that explosion, Barry just feels _warmth._

* * *

They set down on a rocky beach near the edge of the island, far enough away from the village that Barry knows they won’t be found. He hops off of Lup’s back, and she presses her head against him before trotting over to the ocean, where she manages to bring up several fish, and drag them all back. She lays down, her wings tented up, and Barry sits, leaning against her side.

“Burn this for me?” he asks, finding a sharpish stick to stab through one of the fish, holding it out for Lup. She snorts, but breaths a short flame over it—not like her blasting-fire, but something constant. Barry pulls it away once he feels it’s cooked enough, and Lup purrs something before turning to her own pile of fish.

Barry’s still a bit dizzy on his flying high, but being pressed against Lup like this is doing a lot to help him calm. She’s still excited too, he knows, but she’s a steady presence, which is what Barry needs, right now. It’s…

He just can’t get over how amazing it all was. How in sync they were.

He looks up when he hears various _hellos!_ from dragons that aren’t Lup, and sees a flock of four Terrible Terrors landing on the beach and running up to the two of them. The Terrors are tiny, and did greet them, so Barry waves, and leans deeper into Lup’s side. She pulls her pile of fish closer to her, and growls a warning.

The Terrors don’t pay her any heed. A turquoise one tries to steal a fish, but Lup hisses, and the Terror pauses. Barry laughs—the little dragon seems to be considering if it could fight Lup. It must decide no, of course not, as it wanders off to tussle with another Terror, who’s caught a fish for itself.

“Hey!” Lup trills, and Barry glances over to see her ears flared out, as a green Terror drags a fish out of her pile. She snatches the fish from the tiny dragon, tugging it right out of its jaws and swallowing it with a snort of laughter. The Terror flares its wings and scratches at the ground, but Lup just spits out a little flame when the Terror opens its mouth, and the dragon wobbles before wandering off.

“Be nice to them,” Barry says, scratching Lup’s side. She huffs, tugging her pile of fish closer, though she doesn’t protest when Barry grabs a small fish to toss to the Terror. It snatches up the fish in an instant, and turns to look at Barry, head tilted. “Hello,” Barry greets, in his best Draconic. Lup tilts her head at him, impressed.

“Didn’t know you could speak,” she teases, as the Terror creeps up beside Barry, and decides him not-a-threat, as it curls up by his side. Barry moves to pet the tiny dragon, who coos happily and nudges at his fingers.

“Eh, I figure I might as well try,” Barry says, staring down at the Terror. Everything he’s ever been taught about dragons was wrong. He knew that before, but it’s really hitting him now—everything they know about dragons, everything Vikings know…it’s all wrong. Dragon’s aren’t some mindless animals, or some monsters from the deepest pits of the ocean—they’re a people, just like humans, and they’re kind and smart and amazing!

How has nobody noticed? He looks back to Lup, gulping down her final few fish. Lup looks over to him, and grins, tucking her wing around him and pulling him close. It’s a bit like a blanket, and Barry goes willingly—he doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

The flight they shared today was the best thing Barry’s ever done in his life. Lup’s…well, she’s his best friend, yes, but looking at her now…she’s _Lup._ He doesn’t know how to describe his feelings in any other way, because who wouldn’t love Lup? He meant it, when he said he loved her. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with that, and he’s not sure if Lup knows, but he hopes she does.

She’s still trapped, he knows. No matter how good the tailfin he made was, no matter how much fun he had up there with her—he doesn’t want her to be trapped if he’s not there to help her fly. Lup deserves a tailfin she can control, not one he has to. And Barry has no idea how to even start making one for her.

“Lup,” he says, “if I made a tailfin you could control…would you want that?”

“What, trying to get rid of me?” Lup asks, light, but there’s something tense there, and her wing tugs him a bit more forcefully.

“Never,” he says, “I’m just…I’m really scared for you, Lup. If someone else comes across you, I want you to be able to fly away. I want you to be able to go home, again. To see your brother and your flock.”

Lup nods, resting her head on the rocky ground. “It’s…” she sighs. “I. I loved us together up there.”

“I don’t want to give that up, either,” Barry reassures her. “I still want to fly with you, promise, I just…I want you to be able to run away, if you need to.”

Lup’s ears flutter. “It was like a,” and he doesn’t know the final word, but he thinks it’s something important—Lup’s looking him in the eye, and there’s an intensity in her gaze that he can’t read. “I don’t want to give that up.”

“A what?” Barry asks, and he does his best to repeat the word in Draconic—maybe it’s a dragon thing.

Lup looks away. “Don’t worry about it,” she says, “just…do your thing.”

But she doesn’t sound enthused. “What about…” Barry starts to think. She needs to be able to fly by herself, Barry’s not backing down on that, but he can maybe figure out what she’s getting at. When they were flying, they were flying _together—_ like a unit. If she can fly on her own, Barry would be little more than a passenger. And…okay, maybe he doesn’t want that, either. “It’ll take a while to figure out,” he says, “but what about a tailfin that can do both? It works on its own, but then if we’re up there together, it’ll be like what we had today?”

“Yes,” Lup says, “yes yes yes—” and she says it so fast the words nearly slur together. “That’s perfect, that’s!” She jumps up, dislodging Barry, and presses her head against his own, so close that Barry feels a little bit woozy. She thrums with an emotion Barry can’t read, but it’s similar to how she felt up in the sky—like she’s excited and eager and ready for something new. “I love you.”

_Love._ Barry wonders if Lup can see him blushing. It. It has to be different for dragons, he thinks. Because if he maybe might just a little be in love with Lup, then that’s his problem, but Lup—no. She’s, she’s _amazing,_ she can fly and do so many things—why would she be in love with a human?

Cultural differences, that’s all.

“I’ll need more exact measurements of your tail,” he says. It’ll be easiest to do that at the forge, and also try a few things out, but…does he really want to bring Lup into Berk? The dangers alone…

The dragons in the ring. He wants to free them too, doesn’t he? And if he can bring Lup to his workshop, and then she helps him free the dragons…

“I have a really, really dumb idea,” Barry says, and Lup takes a step back. Barry drinks in this vision of her, because what they’re doing could get the both of them killed, but it could also lead to something _even better,_ to the best plan he’s had to get out of dragon training, and the first steps to Lup no longer being trapped. “Do you want to come to the forge with me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they have!!! flown together!!!! and they've also gotten pretty good at the whole communicating thing!! this is like, for sure one of my favorite chapters. 
> 
> anyways! next chapter in a week.


	9. lup in a village...what will she do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup and Barry stage a rescue mission.

Lup glides over the island. With it being the middle of the night, Barry is mostly useless for navigating, because humans have bad eyes, but he’s still doing great at keeping them balanced—it’s been a few days since that first real flight of theirs, and they’ve just been getting better since. Lup’s used to Barry’s weight on her back, and she likes it. She’s always liked being close to others, what with her and Taako never really understanding what personal space was, but with Barry…

It’s something _new._ It’s why she doesn’t want to give it up, doesn’t want to replace _this_ with a tailfin that’s just the one she’s lost. She knows what it’s like to fly by herself; she’s been doing it since she first hatched. Flying with Taako isn’t the same, because he’s still flying by himself, if on his own. But this! This is a dance between the two of them, and it reminds her for a second of Taako, and his crush on Kravitz, before she shoves the idea out of her head.

Barry is her best friend, and she loves him. She loves flying with him. Even something as basic as this is made better with him just above her, so close she can thrum _love_ with her whole entire self and he can feel it. But Barry’s a human. And she doesn’t know what to do with her feelings.

So, not thinking about them. She doesn’t want to leave. As soon as she can fly on her own, the king is going to grab her again, and she doesn’t want to go back to her nest, to her island. She wants to grab Barry and she wants the two of them to disappear off the edge of the world, find some place they can live in together. If her flight is a thing she can turn off…well, that’s not something the king can get around.

Lights twinkle down below, dancing tiny flames, and Lup’s diving for it as Barry pulls in her new tailfin without her even having to say anything. _This,_ she wants to keep. This…synchronicity.

It’s a dangerous dance, they’re doing. Lup sets down lightly, and Barry slides off of her.

“Stick close,” he whispers, a hand on the saddle as he creeps towards the human-nests. Or, _houses,_ as she's learned from Barry. The village is lit by firelight, but the buildings are mostly made of wood, and Lup snorts. One would think someone would realize that maybe building houses out of something so easily flammable wouldn’t be ideal.

She sniffs, turning to stare at the largest house she’s seen yet. It towers over her, and it’s longer than any other house, too—like some grand gathering place, except it smells weird. Some of the smells are food she knows: fish, other types of meat. But there’s heavy scents she’s never picked up before, and she gravitates towards the building without really meaning to. She’s curious, who could blame her?

“Lup,” Barry hisses, tugging at her saddle, and Lup sighs but drops back into following him. She’s being careful: she’s tensed and every single ear-flap she has is pricked, to listen out for noise. She sings out soft looking-sounds, and just gets buildings and Barry. Nothing alive.

Barry leads the way down narrow paths between buildings, so small Lup has to tuck her wings in close just to fit through. Her scales scrape against wood, and whenever they do, Barry flinches at the noise. Lup gets it, but she’s quiet otherwise, and bumps her nose against Barry’s shoulder.

“We’re fine,” she breathes, softly.

“I know, I’m just—worried.” Barry peeks out from their current hiding spot. “There’s a guard that patrols here, is he nearby?”

Looking-sounds bound off corners and bring back nothing alive. Lup shakes her head, and Barry curls a hand around the strap of the saddle as they enter into what has to be one of the main paths, because it’s better-lit than the rest of them. She hurries after Barry, his panic staring to rise in herself—what if they _are_ caught? Lup thinks she can fight if it’s just one human, but Barry knows the humans here, and she’s not sure what to do if it’s the sister he’s talked about. Lup doesn’t want to kill his sister, like she wouldn’t want someone to kill her brother.

They make it to the forge without being found, and Barry slumps with relief once they’re inside, freeing Lup’s saddle from his grasp. Lup shakes, and sniffs the air. It smells of fire and smoke and steel. The steel, she’s not a fan of—she catches sight of glinting metal in the low light, and narrows her eyes—but she likes the fire.

“Be quiet,” Barry says, in a whisper. Lup snorts, because of course she knows that, and starts exploring. This is where Barry works, and she wants to know what he does. He heads over to the thing that smells the strongest of fire, and he…does something, and then it’s burning. Lup trills out with surprise.

“I didn’t know you could use fire,” she says, breathing a soft flame of her own onto Barry’s, to make the fire dance brighter, and she grins.

“Yeah, it’s not as good as what you can do, but.” Barry shrugs. “Gets the job done. Can I see your tail?”

He gets to work taking measurements of Lup’s tail, which means Lup has to sit around and stare and wait for him to finish. She doesn’t mind, though. It’s…he’s giving her a _gift._ Because even though he cares about her, he wants her to be free, to be able to run if anybody finds her. Lup trusts Barry to protect her, and she doesn’t actually think anybody will stumble across the ravine, not if they haven’t yet, but…

He wants her to be free, and isn’t that a weird thing to think? But even more, even more, he understood when she explained to him that she didn’t want that, not fully. She wants them to stay _together,_ and Barry, even if he doesn’t fully know why Lup wants that, said okay, and is making her a gift to fulfill the best of both—freedom and togetherness.

Freedom is a thing Lup’s wanted since she first heard the king’s buzzing in her head, and she has that, now. Not fully, but she has a type of it. And being with Barry…maybe attaching him to her like this isn’t freedom fully, but it’s something she wants, and that’s just as powerful.

Barry moves back over to his fire-maker, apparently having the measurements he needs. Lup wanders off to explore more, but she keeps an eye on Barry. He’s mostly fiddling with what Lup thinks might be a forge, unless that’s the entire building they’re in, but she isn’t sure. She thinks a forge is a fire-maker, though. He rubs his forehead, streaking it black with soot, and Lup grins at it. He would make a good dragon, she thinks.

_Oh_.

She really does want to flock with him. She wants to flock with him like how Taako wants to flock with Kravitz, and the thought sends her staggering. She’s known, from the way they flew together, that it was a dance of sorts, the two of them swirling together in the sky. She knows she’s impressed with him, and she’s pretty sure he’s impressed with her, right back. And that’s step one, in flocking together. It’s…

She flocks with Taako, but in a different way. That's a bond of siblinghood, of hatching from the same egg and being together from their first breaths. What she wants with Barry is much, much different than that. A bond of choice, of watching him and thinking _yes, you’re the one I want._ The warm fuzzies make _sense,_ now, whenever she looks at Barry doing something like making her the best tailfin he can, or the dizzying, overwhelming joy when they fly together and pull off something difficult.

Well.

That’s. Something Lup will have to deal with, because she very much doubts Barry feels the same. He’s a human. He’s not a dragon, and he’s like her, but not the same as her—cultural differences, and the like. It's not like they've talked about flocking, and Lup's got no idea how similar it is for humans. She’ll get over it. He’s still her best friend, no matter what.

She slinks over to Barry, being careful not to trample anything, and sits beside him, pressing her nose into his hair. Barry reaches a hand back to pat her, and Lup leans into the touch just as Barry leans into her.

“What’s this about?” he asks. He doesn’t look at her, focused on what he’s drawing, designs for a new tailfin.

“Just because,” Lup says, tilting her head. “Are you building it tonight?”

“No, just finalizing some details,” Barry says. “It’ll take a while to make. It’s going to be really good, Lup. It’ll attach to the saddle, like the one you have now, and when I’m sitting, it’ll work the same way, so I use it the same. But if I’m not on the saddle, I can…there’ll be basically a switch I can flip, that’ll lock the tailfin to you. My goal is to have it line up with your current tailfin, the one you control—so whatever you do with that tailfin, this one mimics. And!” Barry says, drawing a final line with his pencil before turning around to look at her. “I’ll make it match, too. I’ve mostly figured out how to grind your shed scales into a paste, so I can paint it.”

Lup purrs without meaning to, and wishes Barry was a dragon, so he’d just understand everything she doesn’t know how to say. But she’s glad he’s a human— _her human,_ she thinks with a grin—because otherwise, none of this could happen, and she loves this about him. She loves how he creates stuff, she loves how they fly together—yes. As good a dragon he might be, he’s a better human.

“It’s perfect,” she says, and Barry smiles, twisting around to pull her into a hug, scratching that one spot under her chin that makes her warm and floppy.

“I’m glad,” Barry says, pulling back. “But I’m also done with this, for the night—ready to go break some dragons out of the ring?”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Lup says, and see, this? This is a good human. She purrs, more to herself than anything, as Barry rolls up the paper with his design on it, tucking it under his arm. Lup steps on the fire to snuff it out, and Barry just stares at her before he starts laughing.

“You’re amazing,” he says, and then, “I have to drop these off in my room, so please be careful.”

“Uh-huh,” Lup says, nodding, a bit more focused on the _you’re amazing._ It’s the one time in her life she’s glad she’s stuck somewhere without Taako, because he’d absolutely be making fun of her right now, and she’d probably deserve it. She follows Barry out of the forge, sticking to the shadows while he creeps into his nearby house. He offers her a thumb-up when he comes back out a few minutes later, and leads the way to the ring.

He doesn’t need to, though. Lup can smell the thick fear-scent from here, and she flattens her ear-flaps and presses closer to Barry. How many dragons have been killed here? How many dragons who roosted at the same island as she did, who were distant but flockmates all the same, because they all shared the bond of hating and fearing the king? How many of them died here, and for nothing?

Barry rubs her scales as they approach, leading her to a place where the ground dips down. There are metal bars that block the way, though Barry pushes them open, and Lup follows him down. It’s not dirt, under her paws anymore, but a rough stone like she’s never felt. Lup decides that she hates it, and she snorts, her wings ruffling.

Another set of bars are pushed open, and then she enters the ring. It’s…awful. Lup nearly cringes out of it, with how heavy the air is with fear. She can’t even pick out any specific dragons, it’s just layer after layer of fear and blood and death, and Lup whimpers, hating it more than she’s ever hated anything.

“Barry,” she whispers, and Barry nods, letting her press close. He's lucky for his human nose. 

“I know,” he says, “it’s horrible.” He points across the ring, to where Lup assumes the dragons are—wooden doors held closed with logs attached to more metal, though some of the doors look more complicated: one is covered with metal chains that stink so much of _wrongness_ that Lup can’t smell anything else when she creeps over.

“I don’t know how to open that door,” he says, and Lup gives a soft whine of regret for whoever might be stuck inside, and joins Barry in front of one of the doors. If she could, she’d blast every door clean open, free everybody in here—but it’s not an easy place to flee from, and Lup doesn’t want to die. They’ll come back for everybody, eventually. She has to believe that.

Barry opens the first door, and out comes a pair of little green dragons, like the ones Lup saw back at the beach. They give Barry a wide berth, and Lup peers down at them.

“Hello,” she says, because while Barry is freeing the dragons, she’s going to reassure them, tell them how to get out. “Can you fly?”

One of them, a paler green, shakes, and their friend noses a wing on the shaking dragon that’s been cleanly sliced through. “She can’t,” says the second dragon. “Humans cut it.”

Lup hisses—not at the dragons, but at whatever human did this. She’s lucky in that she has Barry, but she doesn’t think even Barry could make a new wing. “The exit’s over there,” she says, gesturing to it. “Bluejay,” and she twitches her tail at Barry, using her nickname because she doesn’t want to scare these dragons even more, and human-language would, she thinks, “is safe, he won’t hurt you. Avoid anyone else.”

The pale green dragon stares at Barry. “He’s the only one who doesn’t hurt us,” she says.

“He’s good like that,” Lup tells them. “Now run, I don’t know how much time we’ll have.”

The little dragons nod, and scamper for the exit, Lup turns her attention back to the next cage Barry is opening. It rumbles and creaks when he opens it, and Lup winces, because what if a human hears that? To be safe, she pricks her ear-flaps, listening for footsteps. Good thing she blends in with the dark.

It’s a thickly armored dragon that comes out, one that Barry just manages to avoid being hit by. Lup snarls, putting herself between Barry and this new dragon. They’re brown and somewhat bumpy—a bit like Killian, one of Lup’s friends, though Lup hasn’t seen much of her since Carey went missing.

“Exit’s over there,” Lup snaps, “we’re saving you, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go hurting my—”

She cuts herself off. Her what? She was going to say her _flock-partner,_ but that’s a word that means _bonded,_ that means they’ve chosen each other and flocked together, and they for sure haven’t done that. The brown dragon looks between the two of them.

“Thank you,” they say, and buzz over to the exit. They freeze, when they get there, and look back at Lup, wide-eyed, before launching themselves into the sky with a frenzy Lup’s not sure is deserved.

Which might mean…Lup pricks her ear-flaps, and—

“Human!” she hisses, and Barry stops where he’s re-closing the cage he just opened. “Barry, someone’s coming, what do I do?!”

“Uh—in here,” he says, pushing her towards the cage. Lup freezes, shaking herself, but Barry pushes harder. “I swear I’ll let you out; if anybody sees you, they’ll kill you. Lup, I promise.”

Lup takes a deep breath, and enters the cage, Barry shutting the door after her.

It’s pitch-dark, and there’s nothing Lup can do to escape the fear-scent that hangs around and clings to her scales. Lup wants to roar and blast and get _out,_ everything in her is telling her to grab Barry and run, but she can’t. She’s stuck and she trusts Barry, she does, but she doesn’t trust whatever human is coming. What if they take Barry away from her? What if Barry can’t let her out, what if she’s stuck here? Lup whines low in her throat, her breaths coming heavy.

Barry will let her out. He will. He has to. She curls into a ball, the space barely big enough for her to do so. Her wings are bunched up against the wall, and she presses her nose to the tailfin Barry made her. Other than the saddle, it’s the only part of her that smells a little bit like him, and she needs something in this dark space. She can’t see a thing. She’s never been in darkness like this.

“Barry,” says a human voice from outside, one that Lup’s never heard in her life. She wants to roar and rage but all she can do is tuck herself into a tighter ball. “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Lucretia! How, uh, good to see you here.” Barry swallows.

“…sure,” says Lucretia—Barry’s sister, if Lup remembers right. “So, again, what are you doing here?”

Barry’s quiet for a while, and Lup knows he’s panicking even if she can’t see him. “I’m practicing,” he finally says, and the lie is obvious to Lup’s ears. But Barry sounds a lot closer than the unfamiliar human, which means he’s protecting her. He will. He has to. “For dragon training?”

“Oh,” Lucretia says, and her voice cuts off halfway with a yawn. “Well, invite Magnus next time. He’s jealous that you’re so much better than him.”

“…today’s the last day I’m doing it,” Barry says. “So. Can’t, uh, invite anybody. Is that all?”

“I—okay,” Lucretia says. She sounds suspicious, and Lup wants her to _go away,_ so she can be out of this cage and back in her ravine and with Barry or in the sky and with Barry and really just anywhere but here. “You woke me sneaking out, but not Dav, so don’t worry. As long as we’re quiet going back in.”

“Back in?” Barry asks, and his voice almost squeaks.

“Yeah?” Lucretia sounds confused, now, but still, there’s that hint of suspicion. “I heard you closing up the cage, so I guessed you were done.”

“Back home,” Barry mutters, low enough that Lup thinks she’s the only one to hear it. “Okay. But I probably won’t sleep that long, I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“I have no idea why I need to know that, but okay,” Lucretia says, and Lup hears footsteps—Barry’s footsteps. He’s moving away, he’s going to leave her, and no. No, he’s not. She heard what he said: he won’t sleep long, so he’ll be back for her as soon as he can.

There’s a loud slam, and then another, and then everything is silent.

Lup can’t get herself to stand up. She doesn’t think there’s room for her to stand up, really. She squeezes her eyes shut, not that it matters, because she can’t see anything with them open. Her world is the narrow cage, and she presses herself into a ball. The straps of the saddle are a faint pressure around her chest, and Lup wishes they were tighter, just so she had something more to ground herself on. Not even the metal gears cut into her scales—it says something about Barry’s work and care, but she wants the pain, she needs something to know she’s not alone in here.

She wants _Barry._ Lup whines and tucks her nose under her tail, and wants to free every single dragon in this horrible place. Nobody deserves this. But she knows that she won’t be able to free them all—there’s no way she can come back and risk herself like this again. What if Barry can’t get to her?

No, no, no. Barry will come for her. Worse comes to worse, Lup can try blasting her way out, though only as a last resort, because she needs Barry with her to fly away. Maybe he was right, about her having a way to fly without him. She wants to fly with him, she wants to be free of the king, but…yeah. She’s seeing his point, now.

The darkness and fear are so thick around her they’re like a living creature. Lup doesn’t know how long she stays in the cage, frozen and terrified, purring ragged comfort to herself as though that can replace Barry being with her. She wants to cry out for her brother, also, which is dumb, because she hasn’t cried for him since they were hatchlings, and besides, there’s no way Taako can reach her when he’s on their island. But she wants him, still. She wants somebody.

She stays frozen until she hears a creak of the door opening, and only then does she crack open her eyes, and turn just in time to see Barry, and his face is—his face is perfect, and _he’s_ perfect, and Lup launches out of the cage and smashes herself against him as hard as she can without knocking him over.

“I need to be out of here,” she tells him, “I need to be in the sky, Barry, I need—”

“I know,” he whispers, and he shuts the door behind her. “I just have to close these final few doors, and we can get out of here.” He puts a hand on the straps of her saddle, and Lup lets him tug her along, hardly noticing when the metal bars close and leave the ring locked behind them. Barry hops onto her back, and Lup goes up the second she can. She doesn’t care where she’s going. She lets Barry chose, just lets him do whatever the fuck he wants with the tailfin, and follows.

“We have to get the rest of them out,” Lup says, her voice quiet. But they’re soaring high, and mostly just gliding—the wind isn’t loud enough to swallow her voice. “It was horrible, Barry, dark and cramped…it stunk like fear and death.”

“I know,” Barry says, and he rubs a hand up and down her neck, repetitive, soothing motions, scratching _fondness_ and _relief_ into her side. “Fuck, Lup, I’m so sorry. If I thought that would happen—everything just—fuck. I’m sorry. I tried to get out of it but I couldn’t, and then Lucretia took forever to fall asleep, and just—sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Lup says, focusing on Barry and nothing else. “We knew…we knew there was a chance something bad would happen. Can we just stay up here for a while?”

She needs the air. The air and Barry together is her best version of freedom, and she wants it all.

“Of course, Lup,” Barry says, “whatever you need.”

They drift lazily, less flying and more riding the wind currents. It’s low-effort enough that Lup lets herself fall into a half-doze. She could shake herself awake if she wanted to, but she doesn’t. She wants to feel faint brushes of wind against her, and she wants Barry by her side.

She’s shaken back into awareness by a hand on her back, and she blinks, waking herself. The sun’s rising, somehow. They’re still high up in the air.

“Did I…did I fall asleep?” Barry asks, groggy, on her back, and Lup laughs. She’ll…she’ll be okay. She’s got Barry, after all. “Wait, you haven’t been up all night, have you?”

“No, the air was nice enough that I dozed,” Lup tells him, taking them down out of the clouds, so they can see the ocean and the island below them. Lup’s not going near another human for a while, she thinks. She wants to get back to her ravine, where she’s safe.

Barry tenses on her back, and Lup frowns. “Barry?” she asks, backwinging, so they’re stopped at a hover.

Barry points to the water below them. Lup peers down, and sees a mostly destroyed human ship. The wood is scarred like it’s been burnt, and large chucks of the side are missing, like someone bit them clean off. A weird mix of pride and fear fills Lup—she’s glad the dragons of whichever nest these humans attacked got away, but what if someone on that ship is someone Barry cares about?

“A fleet went out to find the nest,” Barry says, sounding…a little worried. “That must be them, but…” He trails off with a sigh.

Most of them didn’t make it back, Lup guesses. “You need to be back there?” she asks.

“Probably,” Barry admits, “Dav’ll want me there, at least, and I don’t want Lucretia getting more suspicious than she already is. Shit, Lup, I’m sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”

Lup’s fine to sleep in the sunlight for most of the day, actually, and she says as such when she sets down in the ravine, Barry sliding off her back.

Barry hurries to climb out, but he stops when he makes it to the still-stuck shield, turning to look back at her. “Do you want me to get you out of here?” he asks. “Land up there, so you have more space?” He points up and around.

“No,” Lup says, shaking her head. It’s…weird. But she doesn’t hate the ravine like she used to. It’s one of the safest places on the island, at least, which makes it good in her book, and it’s nice because it’s where most of her memories with Barry are. “I don’t mind waiting here, and it’s where you know to find me.”

“Okay, Lup,” Barry says, ducking under the shield. “I’ll be back, promise!”

Lup smiles after him, and curls up in the closet patch of sunlight, spreading her wings and letting it warm her to her scales.

Never again, is she going to be trapped in darkness like that. Never again, will she let herself be cornered and put in an awful situation.

As soon as she can fly on her own again, she’s going to free the rest of the dragons stuck in there. And then…well. Lup’ll figure that part out when she gets there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the past two weeks i have binged the entirety of the magnus archives and coped with the season four finale by writing the weirdest crossover between this fic and that. i'm not sure what i'm supposed to do with the 2k word doc on my computer. it is somehow even more niche than this ever was. why do i write these things. 
> 
> anyways. next chapter in a week!


	10. barry's plans to run away go very, very wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite his attempts, Barry's named best in dragon training, and given the "honor" of killing his first dragon. Which he absolutely won't do, so, how hard could running away be?

Barry thumps his head down on his desk. Like he saw from the sky, most of the people who went to find the nest didn’t come back, which is what he expected, as that’s what always comes from those expeditions. He just…wishes they hadn’t come back today. He had to spend the entire day in the Great Hall and listen to Edward and Lydia talk about how close they got, and he just doesn’t care. He can’t care, not when he’s worried about Lup, and he wants to work on his new tailfin for her, but it’s too dark to really do any of that.

An entire day, wasted. And he promised Lup he’d visit her as soon as he could, and it’s been a day and she’s still alone out there.

He’s halfway to standing up and going anyways, when the door to his room opens. Barry starts, because nobody comes into his room, and is desk is strewn with pictures he’s drawn of Lup, ideas for tailfins and saddles. He slams his journal shut, tries to shove all the papers under it, and sees Davenport enter, setting a candle down on Barry’s desk for them to better see by. Barry debates just sitting on his papers, to hide them.

“Barry,” Davenport greets, which might be the worst way to start anything. Barry tenses—did someone find Lup? Did someone _kill_ Lup? “Lucretia told me about last night in the ring.”

“Did she now?” Barry ask, wishing his voice didn’t sound so high and obviously panicked. “And, uh. What did she tell you?”

He’s pretty sure Lucretia never saw Lup, but she’s smart, and she definitely suspected something—Barry’s not sure how much she believed him when he said he was practicing.

Davenport laughs. “Nothing bad, I promise. Just that she finally figured out how you got so good at dragon training, practically overnight—because you were training!” He smiles at Barry, proud, and Barry feels something twist in his gut. He doesn’t _love_ lying to his mostly dad, but he also wants Lup alive more than he dislikes lying.

“Sure was,” Barry says, awkwardly. He shoves a few more pictures under his journal, to better hide them. “So, uh. Anything else, or can we—”

“I’m proud of you, Barry,” Davenport says. “I was worried at first, and anybody could see you weren’t fully happy as a blacksmith-for-life—but you seem so much happier now! Magnus practically idolizes you, and Angus wants to know how you have such a way with dragons. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, Barry. How do you do it?”

_I’m happier because of Lup,_ Barry thinks, but doesn’t say. “Secret,” he tells Davenport, who nods and laughs, like that’s about what he was expecting.

“Don’t want to give it away, I understand.” Davenport is quiet for a minute, before speaking again. “You know that the ships came back empty-handed, today, and everyone could use a little boost of morale. And you’re obviously the best at dragon training, especially looking at where you started from—you told me you couldn’t kill dragons, didn’t you? And look at you now!”

Barry just manages to bite back a _I still can’t._ He just wants to go see Lup, make sure she’s okay. He left her stuck in a dark cage for an hour, and then fell asleep on her back right after—he’s been a horrible friend. “What’s the point of this, Dav?” Barry asks, pushing all the other thoughts aside. He can worry about Lup later: right now he needs to get through this conversation.

Fuck, if Davenport ever finds out that he’s most likely in love with a dragon…

Well. He won’t. Barry’ll make sure of it.

“It’s about time for you to kill your first dragon,” Davenport says, and Barry’s stomach drops out of his chest. “I’ll announce it in dragon training tomorrow, and then the day after that…the dragon you’ll be killing, well. It’ll be an honor, Barry. If you still want to be blacksmith after, that’s fine, but you’ll be welcome in any battle.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I’m proud of you,” Davenport repeats. “If you ever decide you want to become chief…just know you’d be my first pick.”

With that, Davenport stands, claps Barry on the shoulder, and leaves the room. Barry thumps his head, again, onto his desk.

He’s fucked.

He doesn’t sleep that night, stays at dragon training just long enough for Davenport to announce that he’ll be the one killing— _murdering,_ he thinks darkly—the mystery dragon tomorrow, and ignores all the kids congratulating him, heading straight for the ravine. He won't kill a dragon. He absolutely refuses. And he’s not finished with Lup’s new tailfin, nowhere close, but they fly perfectly together, and Barry’s done being a Viking.

He slides down into the ravine, calling out a “Hello!” in the growls of Draconic. He’s getting better at speaking it. He knows a good number of words, when he talks to Lup, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to get the growls to translate when he tries to say them. His aren’t anywhere as sharp as hers, but Lup tells him he’s good enough that even someone who wasn’t her would probably be able to understand him.

“Did you just growl?” Magnus asks, and Barry whips around so fast he nearly falls over. Ducking under the shield is Magnus, followed by Lucretia, and _why the fuck are they here._

“Did you follow me?” he asks, and Lucretia just shrugs, hopping down off the rock to stand near him. Barry glances around—he doesn’t see Lup, which is a good sign. If he can just get Magnus and Lucretia out of here…

“Yeah,” Magnus says, and that’s when Barry notices that he’s brought his ax, glinting in the sunlight. “You’ve been acting weird for a while. Lucretia told me about you in the ring last night. Said you were training, but she heard no dragon roars or weapons hitting scales, which is, uh, pretty odd. Also said she saw a Gronckle in the sky, which is even more odd.”

“Are you the only—” Barry starts, but Lucretia cuts him off.

“Angus knows, but we convinced him to stay behind in case you try to run off,” she says. “What’s up with you? You left before anybody could congratulate you, I know you snuck back out last night, hell, you sneak out _every day,_ practically, sometimes you never even come back—what gives?”

“I,” Barry says, desperate, trying to think of something, anything to get the two of them out of the ravine and away so he can find Lup and ask her if she’d mind bringing him to her own island, please, he’ll take anything over this. “I have a…secret…girlfriend,” Barry says. And almost instantly wants to just jump into the ocean, because what? The fuck? Why did he say that?

Lucretia and Magnus stare at him, wide-eyed.

“She’s from another island,” Barry says, aware that he’s digging a deeper pit for himself but not sure what the fuck else he’s supposed to do, because he can’t just change the lie halfway through. “This is where we meet.”

“What’s her name?” Magnus asks, not sounding like he believes Barry at all.

“Toothless,” Barry says, because honestly, fuck his life. He’s fucked, it’s not like anything matters because there is absolutely no way he’s going to survive this. Even if he does, he’s leaving forever, so really, nothing matter.

“Toothless?” Magnus says, very confused. And then he freezes, and yells, “get down!”

“Fuck,” Barry says, with feeling, turning to see Lup, who was apparently napping in the shade of the tree, but she’s awake now, and her eyes narrow when she catches sight of Magnus with his ax. Barry tries to run to her, but Lucretia grabs him and tugs him down with her before he can. He hears the hissing shriek of Lup before she fires a blast of flame at Magnus, and he tugs himself out of Lucretia’s grip.

“Don’t hurt her!” he yells, scrambling to his feet and shoving Magnus to the side before Lup can pounce on him. Lup hisses, pressing herself close around him, her tail lashing, ears flat against her head.

“Who the fuck is _her_?” Magnus asks, pushing himself back up. His eyes go wide when he sees Lup wrapped around Barry, and he hefts his ax again. Lup snaps at him, and Magnus, for his credit, doesn’t jump.

“Lup,” Barry says. Quietly, to Lup, he adds, “we're fine _,_ that’s my sister and her friend.”

“She’s the reason I was trapped in a cage,” Lup hisses, but she doesn’t do much more than that, sticking close.

“It was an accident,” Barry says. “I’m sorry. I wish—it was a horrible thing that never should’ve happened to you, but we have to—Lup, we have to get out of here.”

“What do you mean, leave?” Lucretia asks. “Barry, why is the Night Fury—” she glares even harder at him, if that’s possible, “—acting friendly with you?”

“Because Barry’s my friend!” Lup snarls, and Lucretia starts, at that, at the sound of his name in a dragon’s mouth. Barry can’t help but grin, and there’s something almost vicious in it.

“Dragons aren’t what we think they are,” Barry explains, and he carefully extracts himself from Lup, moving over to Magnus and taking the ax right out of his hands—Magnus is too stunned to do much else. He throws it into the pond, and Magnus makes an aborted movement to grab it, but Lup snarls and he stops. “They’re intelligent beings, just like us. They’re trying to survive, just like us. They have friends, and family, and we’ve been incredibly wrong about them this whole time.”

He moves to scratch behind Lup’s ear, and she purrs at him. “Lup is my _friend_ ,” he stresses. “And she’s been my friend for a few months, now. She’s who I’ve been sneaking out to see most days, and I’m going to be frank with you here, but my plan today was to just run away. Pack up and leave Berk with Lup, if she wanted that.”

Lup looks down at him, and bumps her nose to his shoulder. “I would’ve said yes,” she whispers. “I still say yes. I want…if we can find my brother, I wanted us to all head out. Maybe find the edge of the world.”

Barry smiles. He wants that, too, but he has to get through this situation first.

“We could tell Dav,” Lucretia says, carefully.

“Sure, but I’d be gone before you got back to Berk, so have fun telling him I befriended a Night Fury and then betrayed everyone for her.” He snorts at the last few words.

“We should leave now,” Lup mutters, trying to nose him onto her back.

“Wait,” Barry says. “Please? Lucretia’s my sister, and I might still be able to convince them. And…” he’d feel awful if he left all the ring dragons to die. He owns it to them to get them out. Lup nods, purrs softly, and seems to come to the same realization.

“Convince us of what?” Magnus asks, taking a cautious step closer. Lup bristles, but doesn’t growl.

“Just—that dragons are good,” Barry says. “That they aren’t monsters. Please, guys. Let me show you.”

“Fine,” Lucretia says. “But only if you let me draw pictures of her. Nobody’s ever seen a Night Fury, and I want to draw one for the Book of Dragons.”

Barry laughs. “That’s—yeah, you can do that. Just don't show anybody. Magnus?”

“I’m curious,” Magnus admits. “How are you going to show us? Did you like, train her, or something?”

Lup sniffs at the implication, and Barry shakes his head, patting her. He’s got a perfect idea for what to show them, and neither of them are going to be able to believe it.

* * *

Fitting three people onto Lup’s back isn’t as hard as it could’ve been. Barry’s in the saddle, of course, because he has to help with flying, and Lucretia is behind him, with Magnus behind her. He’s told the both of them to hold on tightly, because he doesn’t have anything to keep them fastened to Lup’s saddle like him, and it wouldn’t be great if one or both of them just died.

“I have to say, this isn’t what I was expecting,” Magnus says, and he glances down at the ocean below them. Barry snorts. He hasn’t been scared of heights since that very first flight—he’s just excited. Lucretia doesn’t say anything, but when he glances back at her, she looks like she’s in awe.

As she should be, Barry thinks. It’s a rather breathtaking experience, and all they’ve done so far is sit on Lup’s back and hover over the ocean.

“Are you both holding on?” Barry asks, and gets agreements from both of them. “Alright,” he says, to Lup. “Please be gentle.”

“It’s like you don’t know me,” Lup tells him, and with a swift upstroke of her wings, they dart up into the air. Barry could be mad—he does, after all, want Lucretia and Magnus to like them—but he _can’t_ be, because flying is amazing and flying fast is even better.

Lup spirals upwards, spinning, and Barry just cheers, because come on, what else is he supposed to do? Lup roars back at him, breaking through the clouds with a grin, and Barry glances back to check that they haven’t lost anybody. Lucretia’s gripping him so tight he’s pretty sure it’s going to leave a mark, but she doesn’t look too scared, and Magnus is just staring dead ahead, wide-eyed. Maybe he’s a bit more scared.

Doesn’t matter. Lup’s tucking her wings in close and Barry knows what this means, snapping the tailfin in, as they plummet towards the ocean. Falling like this is a lot like flying—the same fluttering feeling of weightlessness, the same excitement, the same sensation of waiting—Lup falls straight into the ocean, darting out of it with another spin, tailfins tucked tight so they can make the sharp twists and turns. Again, Lup splashes into the ocean, but not as much, and she lets a wing trail in the water before they’re climbing up again.

Barry _loves_ it. It’s them together, and he loves that, everything in him exhilarating and wanting to scream his joy. Lup, he knows, feels similar—she’s told him as such, and he can feel her thrumming with it underneath him.

“Okay, this is actually kinda cool!” Magnus yells from the back, and Barry grins, glancing down to see the matching one on Lup’s face. She snaps out her wings to glide, leveling them out, and Barry adjusts the tailfin accordingly. “And you do this? Every day?”

“Well,” Barry says, “most days. Took us a while to get to this point.”

“It’s beautiful,” Lucretia says, loosening her grip on him now that she’s not in danger of falling. Barry can imagine—the island is tiny below them, their village lit only with the faintest pinpricks of torchlight. “I’m—I promise not to tell Dav,” she says, and Barry laughs, relieved.

“Good,” he says, fanning out the tailfin as Lup takes them higher, up above the clouds—here, the sky is dark and star-speckled, and Barry almost feels like he could scoop them up, if he just tried. Magnus does actually reach out, letting his hand run through a cloud.

“You have to kill a dragon tomorrow,” Magnus says, not meeting his eyes. “How are you going to do that?”

“You have to what?” Lup asks, and Barry sighs.

“Dragon training,” he explains. “Whoever does the best gets to kill their first dragon, and with everything I’ve learn on how to talk to dragons from you…” he trails off. He hasn’t hurt a single dragon, but to Vikings who are looking for bloodshed, they’ll find it where they can.

“Oh, Barry,” Lup says, and Barry rubs her side, leaning down to rest his head against the back of hers. “I…if we really need to leave…?”

“I’ll figure something out,” he says. “Don’t worry about it, Lup. I’m…maybe I can show them that dragons aren’t evil.”

“How would you do that?” Lucretia asks.

Barry sits back up, shrugging. “Who knows,” he says. “I can somewhat speak Draconic, but not perfectly.”

“Draconic?” Lucretia asks, at the same time Lup says, “you’re pretty good! Better than I am at Human!” She sounds a bit upset, and Barry shakes his head.

“It’s not your fault dragon mouths can’t make human vowel sounds, that’s on the humans who came up with their overcomplicated language.” Lup snorts, at that, and Barry grins. “But yeah, Draconic. It’s what I’m calling Lup’s language. She’s oh-so-creatively named our own language Human.” Lup swats him with an ear-flap.

“Does…” Lucretia attempts to pronounce Lup’s name, and it comes out as a garbled mess, which, Barry can’t say much, because he was the same at first. She frowns, and Lup just laughs, rising a bit in the air with a beat of her wings.

“I’ve gotten way better,” he says, because Lup can’t protest that fact. To Lucretia, he says, “it took me like, over a week to be somewhat okay with Draconic and that was just Lup’s name. Sometimes I call her Toothless, if that’s easier for now.”

“Toothless?” Magnus asks, and Lup glances back at him. “She has teeth, though?”

“They’re retractable,” Barry explains, and Magnus stares at him.

“That sounds fake,” he says, “but you’re the one with the Night Fury friend, so I’m just gonna accept it as truth. Hey, actually,” Magnus pauses, considering. “You said you had a girlfriend, and when I asked her name, you said it was, uh,” he points to Lup, “her. Toothless. Is that true? Are you dating a dragon?”

Barry flushes red, and his cheeks go uncomfortably hot. Lup doesn’t react, thankfully. She and Barry haven’t talked about dating, in both the, between them sense, and how it’s done in their respective cultures, and he never, ever plans to. He’s not losing his best friend because he went and was stupid and fell in love with her.

“I was trying to get you to go away,” he says, which is the truth, but his voice sounds weak even to him. “I, uh. Panicked?”

“Damn,” Magnus says. Lucretia giggles, and Barry sighs. Neither of them are going to let him live that one down, are they?

…do dragons even date?

Barry shakes the thought out of his head. Of course they do, but that’s no reason to go around getting his hopes up. “We should head back,” he says, “I still need a better plan for tomorrow, because right now it’s just wing it, and hope for the best.”

He’s not sure how far out they’ve flown—he can’t see the island, but he knows Lup can get them back home. “Lup?” he asks, when she doesn’t respond.

Lup tenses, and Barry can feel the shudder that runs through her. Her ears stand on end, trembling, and she’s moving like she’s going to dive and Barry tucks in the tailfin before he even knows what she’s doing.

“Lup,” he says, resting a hand on her side. “What's wrong?”

Lup shakes his hand off, but she croons a soft sound of distress. He’s not sure where they’re going—Lup’s hearing something, and following it somewhere, but…

“What’s happening?” Magnus asks, and Barry just shrugs, as lost as they are.

“I don’t know,” he says, and he ducks low in the saddle, beckoning for the two of them to do the same. “But I trust Lup. We’ll be fine.”

Fuck, he hopes that’s true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting a fanfic more like the mortifying ordeal of being known. i had to edit a previous chapter bc there was a small part of it i hated and it's like. damn....these things really slip through huh. once when rereading a fic i posted i found i accidentally called a character 'lup' and it wasn't even a taz fic and i still think about that sometimes. 
> 
> next chapter in a week!


	11. lup goes home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup returns to her nest. It? Sucks.

Lup forgot how horrible the king’s call was. She’s been free of it since she was stuck on Barry’s island, but now, up in the sky, with not only Barry but two other humans with her…it’s echoing in her skull, a call of _come, bring food, come._ Lup wants to fight it—she wants to get Barry out of here, because it’s not safe, it’s not! But she can’t do anything but follow, helplessly.

She ducks out of the way of a large, red, spiked dragon, a sheep clutched tight in its talons. Lup knows she has nothing, but that’s okay—she’s fast. She’ll be fine, and so will Barry, and fuck, so will his friends. Just…stay calm. Keep on course.

The air is alive with the wingbeats of dragons, with the chatter of their fear, with the buzz of the king.

At least she’ll get to see her brother. Convince him to come back with her, and then she’ll have both her favorites—Taako and Barry—all together in one place, and she can start figuring out how to get to the edge of the world.

“Lup,” Barry says, like he’s been saying since she heard the king’s call. He’s not protesting—he could stop controlling their tailfin, and that’d be it, Lup would lose him and herself. But he’s following her lead, and for that she’s forever grateful. His voice is a calm familiarity, and she wants to drown herself in it so the king can’t get in. “Please, what’s wrong?”

“Can’t,” Lup hisses, and she shudders, wishing they were on the ground so she could press against him, have more contact than just his hand. “Please please _please,”_ she whispers, more to herself than Barry. _Please let him live._

“They’re hauling in their kill,” says one of the new humans, Magnus. Lup dives, under a two-headed dragon, who’s got a human clutched in their claws. She feels someone on her shiver, and even she can’t hide it—at least the human isn’t alive to watch their death, but still. Not even the fish deserve to be fed to the king, but knowing now that humans are like them…

“What does that make us, then?” asks Lucretia.

“We’ll be fine,” Barry says, good, wonderful Barry, and Lup wants to believe him. “I trust Lup. She wouldn’t put us in danger.”

_No,_ she thinks, _no, I am, and I can’t do anything about it._

She’d rather be trapped without a tailfin forever than follow the king. Maybe Barry should just let her sink into the ocean. It would solve this problem, at least. No way to follow a king if she’s dead.

Lup whines. She doesn’t want to die.

“It’ll be okay,” Barry says, and he rubs her side, saying _love love love_ in the tiny motions. Part of Lup wonders if he knows he’s doing it. The other part clings to the affection. “We’ll be okay, Lup. I trust you.”

Maybe he’s reassuring himself as much as he is her.

Lup dives as one, with the giant flock of dragons around her. They’re fast approaching the nest, now, but Lup doesn’t bother with the fancy flying. She could—there’s enough rocks that stick out of the ocean that she could be darting around and over and under them. But she’s not in the mood, for that. She doesn’t have time to waste—the king strikes when he wants, and there’s no way for Lup to know for sure.

It was worse when she was a hatchling. When she couldn’t fly away, and knew if the king came for her, that’d be it. At least now she has a chance.

Lup feels the heat from the volcanic nest before she sees it, through the thick fog. But it comes into view, first a haze, then a mountain shot through with red, and Lup bites back her snarl. She _hates_ this nest, hates it with all her being.

The humans are talking. She hisses at them to shut up, and falls into her practiced pattern. She takes the same path to the center every time—it’s easier that way. As she goes, she calls out soft looking-sounds, searching for anybody she might know, but they all come back empty. That’s okay. Taako’s probably at their perch, already, and there’s too many dragons for her to get a good read on anybody else.

The rocks fall away below her as she enters into the central cavern, everything below her red and hot, sending up waves of heat that make Lup want to sneeze. She has to get to her perch, and fast—most of the dragons are heading for the center, to toss in food, but Lup veers sharply to the right, climbing up to her perch. And—there! She lands on the flat outcrop, close enough that she has a clear shot up to the exit, dark enough that she can hide, with a rock sticking up to hide her. She’s the only one here, and…

“Ah, great that they just dump our food down a hole,” Magnus comments, as Lup sniffs at the ground. It’s…

It’s stale. Taako hasn’t been here…since as long as she’s been gone. Which—what does that—where else would Taako be? Even if he’s managed to woo Kravitz since she’s been gone, the two of them would still hide out here, it’s an ideal spot to wait!

She feels someone about to slide off her back, and she snarls, spinning to snap at whoever it is, before she resumes her pacing.

“What’s wrong with her?” Magnus asks, and Lup bites back a snarl. He’s a human, he doesn’t understand—

And that’s not an excuse. Barry didn’t understand, but he made an effort to try.

“That isn’t what’s happening,” Lup hisses, rubbing her head against the rock like that might scrape the king’s buzzing out of it. “You don’t know anything, you—”

She cuts herself off with a cry, and her looking-sounds bounce around the room. Taako’s nowhere, not that she’s picking up.

“Shh,” Barry whispers, and Lup clings to his voice in her panic. Dragons are still offering food: stragglers, but she has a bit of time before she really has to panic. “I’m here, Lup.”

He is. He is, and Lup wishes he was somewhere safe. But he’s here and he’s helping and oh, fuck, she wants so _badly_ to flock with him. Taako was right when he said she was a little bit jealous of him and Kravitz. She’s never cared romantically for any dragons on the island, and now she’s pretty sure she knows why.

“Love you,” Lup whispers, hoping Barry won’t hear it, and she crouches down to watch the final dragon offer food. It’s a little brown dragon, and it offers half a fish. Lup winces. And then full-on cowers back, hiding as best she can in the shadows, when the buzzing breaks in her ears, and the king himself emerges. Not his full body, never his full body, but he has to be massive. His head explodes out from the lava, and jaws close around the dragon in the center, and just like that, the dragon is gone.

“Dragon-eater,” Lup spits, her claws curling. Barry fans out her tailfin without a word, and leans over her back—he knows. He _knows,_ and he’s her favorite. She tenses herself to spring just as the king’s eyes fall onto her.

She feels Barry's hand between her ear-flaps, and nods, launching herself into the air right before the king’s jaws snap around her, just barely missing her tail. It’s chaos, from there, the shrieks of dragons as they all spiral up and up and up, trying to get out the exit while the king follows, snapping up everyone too slow. Some, Lup knows, are eaten. Some get their wings broken, and are left like scrap bones to fall into the lava.

Lup bursts out the top of the nest, and climbs until she’s safely hidden in the clouds. Her heart is pounding too fast for her to think. Below her, she can see the streams of dragons split off into their own little flocks. Not everyone on the nest is a flockmate—rather, it’s a lot of little flocks, that have been ensnared by the king. Her dad says he once lived free of the king, but Lup and Taako were both born in the volcano.

She never wants to come back. She’s lived with freedom, and she wants to keep it that way.

Lup veers left, and hopes she’s heading the right direction.

* * *

The trip back is, needless to say, stressful. Lup doesn’t calm until she’s got all four paws on the ground again, back in her ravine, and the three humans slide off her back. Barry’s the last one off, and he stays close to her. Lup purrs. She really, really needs this, right now.

“That’s why I didn’t want my flight back,” Lup whispers, pressing her nose into Barry’s hand. “He can’t reach me if I can’t fly. I’m sorry, Barry, I was terrified, I thought we might die…”

“We didn’t,” Barry says. “We’re both okay, Lup. I’ll…we’ll figure something out, okay? Even when I make you the new tailfin, if you know when the…call comes, we can disable it those days. You don’t ever have to go back there again.”

“Thank you,” Lup breathes, and Barry lets her slump against him.

She only gets a moment of rest, though. She can hear the other humans pacing—well, one of them, Magnus, is, the other is standing like she’s trying to process everything that went on. It’s Magnus who speaks first, and Lup just closes her eyes and curls up in a ball. She doesn’t want to deal with this. Barry sits with her, and rubs her head.

“That was the nest!” Magnus says, almost excited—how can someone be excited, when knowing so many dragons just died needlessly? “The dragon _nest,_ and we found it!”

“We have to tell Dav,” Lucretia adds, and Lup feels more than hears Barry groan against her.

“I just want to sleep,” Barry mutters, and Lup rumbles her agreement. Barry’s just as tired as her, Barry’s…

Maybe she should just ask him. Explain to him, as best she can, what them flying together means, what them dancing in the sky together means, what she wants if she asks to flock with him. Risk everything they have together.

It’s selfish. They have bigger problems—the king, the fact that Barry has to kill someone, Taako being gone.

Part of Lup wishes she could just be selfish. The rest of her bites down the urge.

“We aren’t telling anybody,” Barry says. Lucretia and Magnus both look over to him.

“That’s the _nest,”_ Magnus says, as though the words should mean something of import. “Dragons raid us, Barry, we have to—that’s where they’re coming from! We have to destroy it! We can’t—Davenport needs to know.”

“Barry, just because you befriended one dragon…” Lucretia trails off, and Lup’s ear-flaps go flat. Great that nobody is even addressing her, other than Barry. “Well, it was a fluke. A great one, yes, but that monster in there—we can’t befriend that!”

“Nobody wants to!” Lup yells, standing and throwing out her wings wide. “Nobody likes him! You think we choose to do this? To be called away and starve just to feed some dragon-eater? No! It’s…there’s a buzzing, there’s a control, none of us can stop it! No matter how far away you fly, the buzz finds you!” She huffs, breathing heavily. Barry rests a hand on her side.

“The dragons don’t have a choice,” he says, and Lup doesn’t think she’s ever loved anybody like this more than she is in the moment. “They aren’t evil, guys, they’re under control of a shitty leader! We tell Dav, he’s going to ask how we found it, and he’s going to find out about Lup. And then he’ll kill her, you both know it. Even if I explain, he won’t understand, and even if he does, it’ll be too late. Lup—Lup has a brother! A family! None of them are evil, they’re just trapped. Dragons are intelligent like us, they’re kind and caring and _amazing.”_ Barry meets Lup’s eyes, and he smiles. “Killing them isn’t the answer, it never was.”

“Are you really willing to risk all of Berk for one dragon?” Lucretia asks. Her eyes are narrowed, and beside her, Magnus shifts uncomfortably.

“I’m—yes.” Barry takes a deep breath, and he grips the strap of Lup’s saddle tightly—like he’s making a point. Like he’s standing his ground. “I am.”

Lup bumps against him, and purrs. She doesn’t know what to say, but she doesn’t think she has to.

“…okay,” Magnus says, dropping his hands. “I’ll help.”

“Magnus—what?” Lucretia spins to face him, and Magnus shrugs.

“I really don’t think we’re going to change his mind,” Magnus says, “and, honestly, as much as I want to punch a dragon, if I could be friends with one? That’s way cooler. And if they’re all stuck under some horrible chief…Barry’s right, that’s not fair to them.” He turns back to Lup and Barry. “So! What’s the plan?”

“When I face the dragon tomorrow…I’ll just have to change their minds.” Barry moves a bit away from Lup, as though he’s trying to show his thoughts in his movement, in his hands, and Lup purrs her approval. “I don’t have to fight them. I’m not going to kill them. I’m going to go right in there, and I’m going to prove to everyone that dragons aren’t evil.” He snorts, looks back at Lup. “And then…who knows. I’ll keep you safe, though.”

“I can keep myself plenty safe,” Lup tells him, and she spins to shoot a ball of blasting-fire against the rock wall. She sits back and lifts her head when she’s done, and Barry just smiles at her. It makes her get all buzzy inside, but in a good way. Like she’s flying, even though she’s still sitting down. Lup wants to tackle Barry to the ground and nuzzle him as best she can, purr and just fucking ask if he’d want to flock with her. Sometimes…sometimes she even thinks he’ll say yes.

“I know you can,” Barry says, and Lup grins right back at him. “Lucretia?”

“Fine,” she says. “I think this is a very stupid idea, but fine. You obviously care about her, and I’m…” her voice lowers to a whisper. “I really want to learn Draconic.”

“I mostly picked it up talking with Lup, so,” Barry shrugs. “We can do that. Not now, though. Uh, no offense, but if everything goes to shit tomorrow, I’d really love to spend my last day with Lup?”

“Can do!” Magnus calls, heading over to the way out. He stops halfway. “Wait—my ax!”

Lup snorts, hopping into the pond to pick it out for him. She drops it in front of Magnus, rubbing the tang of metal out of her jaws. Magnus blinks at her, grabs his ax, offers her a hand—Lup’s learned from Barry that it’s apparently a human greeting, so she lifts her own paw to tap to his and return it—and climbs out. Lup watches him go. Maybe he’s not that bad.

“Do you…Barry, do you even have a plan beyond ‘change minds?’” Lucretia asks, following Magnus much slower, looking back at them.

“Absolutely not,” Barry says. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“Well, uh. Don’t die, I guess.” Lucretia waves, and follows Magnus up and out of the ravine. Lup watches them until she can’t see them anymore, and she turns back to Barry.

“You do have a plan, right?” she asks.

“Fuck, I dunno, Lup.” Barry moves to sit near a rock, and Lup stretches out beside him, resting her head on her paws. He leans against her. “I can talk to you, can’t I? If I explain as best I can to the dragon what’s going on…maybe something will come out of it. It’s, uh, not the dragon I’m scared about, honestly.”

“The humans?” Lup guesses, and Barry nods.

“I don’t really want to think about it,” he says, and Lup’s all the more willing to doze off with him. Neither of them sleep well, really, but it’s easier for Lup to keep herself calm when Barry’s the first thing she sees, so she at least stays in one place for the rest of the night. It’s not as good as sleeping, but hey, she gets to see Barry, so maybe it’s actually better.

“Barry,” she calls, before he can leave. She trots up to him, her nerves tingling. “If anything goes wrong, if you need help, yell. Scream. I’ll hear you,” a twitch of her ear-flaps, and that gets a faint smile out of Barry, “and I’ll come and help, okay?”

“Lup, I…I appreciate it, I really do, but. It’s going to be dangerous. Every Viking is going to be watching, Lup, and all of them would kill you on sight.”

“I know,” she says, because she does—maybe not the specifics, but that this will be dangerous? Absolutely. “Barry, I—” she breaths deeply, presses her nose into his hair. She wants to just go ahead and say she loves him, because what if this is it? She really, really wants to. But she doesn’t know how, if he’ll understand—she doesn’t know how humans do love! She’s not a human! She doesn’t have time to explain!

“I want to fly with you _always,”_ she decides on. And then, because if this goes poorly there’s a good chance both of them could die: “I want to flock with you.”

“You want to—” Barry starts, but Lup cuts him off.

“Remember,” she says, “yell, and I’ll help you. Don’t you dare die.”

He pulls her into a tight hug, his arms wrapped around her neck. Lup’s tail curls, and she purrs into the embrace.

Barry doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. He pulls away, and she understands. No matter what happens, no matter what she can or can’t say, what he can’t or can’t understand—he knows, she thinks. He knows that she cares about him deeply, and she knows the same.

Lup watches him go. Then, she flexes her wings, and gets ready to practice her solo flying. She knows how the gears move, after all. She’s sure she can get the tailfin to work on her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we have more [fanart!!!](https://verdantelf.tumblr.com/post/190750215450/sketch-dump-for-acaciapines-s-incredible-fic) the amazing verdantelf has once again given me this wonderful gift of art. i am....crying. shower them with love and affection please they deserve it. 
> 
> next chapter in a week! we're getting pretty close to the end, now!


	12. barry doesn't fight a dragon / lup does, actually, fight a dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of Barry having to kill a dragon has finally arrived, and, of course, things go to shit pretty quick.

Barry’s got minutes before he has to enter the ring and fight a dragon. And he’s worried about that, yes. He can hear Davenport finishing up his speech in some distant corner of his brain—something about being proud, about this being a fight to go down in history. A bit…over-the-top, but then again, it’s not like Barry knows which dragon he’s going to fight—just that it won’t be the Terrors or the Gronckle, he notes with pride. By the way Davenport’s speaking about it, he’d think they’d be making him fight Lup.

But that’s not what he’s thinking the most about. Because before he left Lup: _I want to flock with you,_ she’d said. And Barry has absolutely no idea what that means. He knows what he wants it to mean, of course, and from what he can remember about flocks—not that he knows much, since Lup hasn’t ever outright explained it to him—it’s family, both born and chosen. And it might mean she likes him the same way he likes her, a _love_ he’s not sure what to do with, but it’s more likely that she just means he’s her best friend, and they’re going to have to stick together anyways, so they might as well make it official.

Probably not what he should be worrying about, honestly. He might not live to see Lup again, and that’s a painful thought to have. Maybe he should’ve run when he had the chance.

But that would be leaving all the other dragons to die, and it would be leaving Lup to get caught by the king again. He can do better than that.

“Barry?” Lucretia asks, and Barry rubs at his eyes, pulling himself back into focus. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he says, and he peers into the ring through its metal-bar door, up at where the entire village has gathered to watch him kill a dragon. They’re all going to be getting an awful surprise. He catches the eye of Avi, who waves at him, and Barry can’t bring himself to wave back.

“Magnus wanted me to tell you that he’ll jump in if things look like they’re going bad.” Lucretia steps up beside him, and Barry nods to acknowledge her, resting his chin on the bars. The dragon he’s going to fight is kept locked behind a door covered in chains. Even if he can talk to them, what if they don’t want to listen? Barry wouldn’t blame them.

“Tell him thanks for me,” Barry says. If it comes down to that, then Lup’ll come to help, too, and that’s the part he’s worried about. He doesn’t want Lup’s help, because if she gets captured…

The worst that would happen to him is getting yelled at, maybe kicked out, but Barry doesn’t think Dav’ll take it that far. Lup would just be locked up in a cage, or killed. She won’t be able to argue for herself, and Barry’s pleas will be ignored.

He won’t scream, then. If he dies, well.

“If I die,” Barry starts, looking at Lucretia, “make sure nobody finds Lup. In my room, I have blueprints for a tailfin she’d be able to control herself—you and Mags finish that for her.”

“We will,” Lucretia says, just as Barry’s called into the ring. He opens the door just enough to duck under the bars, and they slam back against the ground once he’s in. The throngs of people surrounding the ring are cheering and calling his name, banging weapons against the ground.

_Keep Lup safe,_ he reminds himself, and picks a shield and a small dagger off of the weapons rack. It’s not like he’ll be using either, but the dragon won’t be released if he goes in unarmed.

“I’m ready,” he says, and wonders if anybody else can hear the fear in his voice.

A Viking outside the ring begins to work at the chains, which have been attached to a pulley of sorts, untangling them and dragging them up and off the cage. As they work, Davenport speaks.

“This dragon,” he says, “is a dragon nobody has ever seen before, and we managed to catch it near the tail end of the last major dragon raid. Since then, it’s been locked up, and Barry has a great honor in killing it.” The doors slam open, and Barry hears a whistle of air that he recognizes—it’s the same sound Lup makes before she blasts something. He ducks and rolls out of the way, so the blasting-fire slams against the opposite wall.

The dragon that comes barreling out looks like Lup, but worse. Their scales are a dull black, and they don’t gleam in the sunlight. Their eyes are narrowed and their pupils are slit as they stare directly at Barry, mouth set in a snarl. Their ears are set back, and they’re missing a nub on the left side of their face. Their wings are spread wide, and they’ve got two black tailfins.

The crowd gasps, and Davenport says, “the Night Fury.”

“Taako,” Barry breathes, because there’s no way this is some unrelated Night Fury, not with his luck. Taako twitches, and his wings shudder—he’s terrified, and he has every right to be. Barry’s own heart is pounding in his chest, as Taako advances on him, and he creeps slowly backwards.

“What have you done to her?” Taako growls, low in his throat. His wings are thrown out wide, and his claws tap against the stone of the ground. Out of the shadows of his cage, he’s still dull, but where sunlight hits his scales through the bars, Barry can catch faint hints of color trying to shine through, a deep maroon that’s more purple than red. Behind him, his tail lashes, and Barry’s hit with a pang of regret, seeing those two tailfins. Taako’s aren’t perfect—both of them are shredded and torn around the edges—but they’re both _there._

“Nothing,” Barry says, in his best Draconic. Taako stops at that, shaking his head as though there’s something stuck in it. He hears mutters from the crowd, and ignores them. None of them matter. “Lup’s my friend.”

“You’re lying,” Taako says, but he sounds unsure. “Why can you talk? Humans don’t talk. That’s never—” he snaps at the air, and throws out his wings. “No. No. Who cares! Lup. Where’s my sister? You said her name right.”

Taako doesn’t back off, but he’s not advancing, either, which Barry counts as a success. He holds out both shield and dagger, and Taako eyes the dagger with distrust.

“I’m not one of them,” Barry tells Taako, and he drops both of them. Taako’s ears shoot up, and he nearly stumbles backwards. He repeats his statement, but so everyone else can understand him: “I’m not one of them.”

“Stop the fight,” Davenport says, and Barry shakes his head, holding a hand out for Taako.

“I promise,” he whispers to Taako. He knows people are talking—Barry’s been growling, after all. But growling shows something to his village, he still needs to talk to them, too. “Dragons aren’t what we think they are.” Another step closer to Taako, and his heart is pounding so loud in his chest Barry’s sure Taako can hear it. Taako ruffles his wings and keeps his eyes trained on Barry. “They aren’t monsters.”

This has to work. It _has_ to, because now Barry not only has to keep Lup safe, but Taako, too—he wants Lup and her brother to meet again. “Dragons are smart and intelligent, just like us.” He stops just before reaching Taako’s nose, and slips back into Draconic—it’s not as hard as he thought it would be, not when remembering all those long conversations with Lup. “I’m Barry,” he says, and waits.

Taako’s eyes flick to his hand. His tail sweeps across the floor behind him. He takes a step forward—

A harsh ring of metal echoes out across the ring, as Davenport yells, “I said to stop the fight!” Taako skitters back, at the noise, and soon the rest of the crowd is yelling, too, the world loud and noisy in a way it wasn’t just a second ago. Taako growls and fixes his gaze on Barry—no longer is there something curious in his eyes, just hardened fear.

“I don’t believe you,” he spits, and he lunges. Barry only gets out of the way because he’s been chased by Lup before, ducking down and underneath Taako, who flares out his wings and spins around, his tail slamming into Barry’s legs and knocking him to the floor. Barry yells when he goes down, slamming against the stone floor, and doesn’t have time to think before Taako’s on him again, and Barry only just manages to roll away from his claws.

“Hey!” Magnus yells, and Taako whips to face the new voice. Barry wants to scream—no! Everything is going so wrong! But Magnus is in, and he’s got his ax, the same one Lup gave back to him. Taako hisses, a general sound of _back off,_ and blasts at Magnus, who dodges.

“Fucking humans,” Taako spits, again trying to pounce for Barry, who runs. Taako follows him, crashing through the weapons rack. “Every time! You do this every time! Why are there so fucking many of you!”

“I’m not going to fight you!” Barry yells, still in Draconic, because Taako has every right to attack him, and fuck, why did Davenport have to call it off? Barry was doing _fine!_ Sure, maybe he was facing a Night Fury weaponless and trying to challenge age-old beliefs about dragons, but he wasn’t ever in danger!

Fuck fuck fuck, he hopes Lup stays out of this. He’ll die if it means she isn’t condemned to a life of being trapped. He grabs a shield off the ground, and throws it out just in time for it to get blasted to splinters by Taako. Least it wasn’t Barry himself.

“Dragon, over here!” Magnus shouts, though Taako pays him no mind. He probably should’ve, though, because a second later a spear comes hurtling towards Taako, and it smashes hard into his cheek. Taako, who wasn’t expecting it as he was trying to pin down Barry, is knocked off-kilter, and scrabbles against rock to try and get back up.

Barry hears the rumble of iron bars, and he glances to see that Davenport’s got the exit open, and he’s gesturing for Barry to come.

Well. There’s no way Barry’s going to convince Taako now, so he takes off for Davenport. Magnus makes it there first, nearly slamming into the wall, but Taako’s back on his feet before Barry can make it. Barry has to veer left to avoid a blast of fire, and it’s enough for Taako to leap into the air, and with a beat of his wings, propel himself forwards enough to slam his weight onto Barry, pinning him down with a paw on his chest, claws curling into his skin.

Taako bares his teeth at him in a snarl, wings spread wide above him.

“I’m going to kill you,” he says. “For lying to me about my sister.”

“I swear that Lup’s okay,” Barry says. Taako, like he was expecting, doesn’t acknowledge him, just readies himself to blast fire, smoke coming up in his jaws, sickly green before it’s ignited. If this is it…

Lup is safe. She has to be.

There’s a shriek and an explosion and then the weight of Taako is off Barry. Barry scrambles to his feet, but the world around him is smoke and snarling, and fear grips icy talons around his heart.

* * *

Lup is balancing rocks on the stirrup of her saddle, trying to find the right weight to tilt it back enough to keep her tailfin out, when her ear-flaps prick. Faintly, far off in the distance, she hears someone scream.

She hears _Barry_ scream.

Lup’s launching herself in the air a second later, her tailfin open just enough for her to throw herself at the rock wall, claws scratching desperately against the sides to try and find a grip. She beats her wings, hard, and manages just enough ground to dig her front claws into the grass atop, and she hauls herself up and out of the ravine. Her chest burns with the effort, but Lup doesn’t care.

Barry’s in danger, and she said she’d help him. She’s down one tailfin—the rock fell out the second she jumped into the air, and she doesn’t have time to put in another one. But she can run, and so she does, pounding against the ground and calling out a constant stream of looking-sounds to avoid any obstacles. Sometimes her wings catch the air, for a second, but never enough for her to enter the sky fully, so she mostly runs.

It’s an eternity, it feels like. But the closer she gets, the more she hears—roars and screams and steel against scale. The air smells of excitement, tingling around her with a horrible certainty. When Barry said his whole village was going to watch, he apparently wasn’t exaggerating, not if the wave of human-smells that wash over her are anything to go by.

Lup enters the village from the side opposite the ring, but she knows where it is, and she doesn’t care who sees her. She cares about not letting Barry die, and as the ring comes into view, surrounded by humans, she takes once more into the sky, leaping as high as she can before blasting at the metal chains that keep the dragons within from fleeing into the sky, and diving into the fray. Someone’s pinning Barry down, and she doesn’t care who—she tackles them off of him with a snarl.

“You stay away from him!” Lup shrieks, as she and the dragon roll across the floor. Lup flares her wings and comes to a stop first, pinning the dragon down—he’s got dark scales like hers, and he’s staring up at her with green eyes blown wide, and—

“Lup?” her brother says, his voice nearly shaking with his hope.

It’s _Taako,_ and what the hell have the humans done to him? How long was—he must’ve been trapped in a tiny cage, like she was for that horrible hour. He doesn’t look like himself, he’s dull and on the skinny side, patches of scales alongside his wings rubbed raw to the skin. His tailfins—both of them—are tattered, like a leaf eaten by a caterpillar. He’s missing a flap on the side of his head, one of the ones used with the looking-sounds, and Lup…

“Why were you trying to kill Barry?” she asks, trying to keep her voice from cracking. “Why were you—how long have you been here?”

“Fucking—since we last raided? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter! You mean the human wasn’t lying? What the fuck, Lulu? I’m trapped for months while you’re out making nice with the enemy?” Taako squirms under her, and Lup steps off of him to let him free. She glances up—the humans above haven’t moved to hurt either of them, but Lup thinks that’s just because of the smoke still thick in the ring. She takes a few steps backwards to where Barry is, and Taako’s gaze follows her.

“Barry,” Lup whispers, nosing his side. He’s got a few deep scratches in his chest, and his leg is scabbed with blood.

“I didn’t know,” Barry says, horrified. “I didn’t know he was trapped in here.”

“You’re friends with the human,” Taako says, and he laughs, a bitter sound. He stalks towards them, and Lup pins her ear-flaps back with a hiss. She loves her brother, yes, but she loves Barry, too, and she’s not risking anything. “What the fuck happened to you, Lup? You never came to rescue me, your tailfin is a different color, and what’s around your chest?”

“I tried,” Lup says. She shifts, uneasy—the humans watching are murmuring amongst themselves like a beehive, and Lup doesn’t trust them to stay put. “You have to get out of here.”

“I want to know what’s going on,” he says, glaring at her.

“ _Please,”_ Lup says, but Taako stands his ground. “I don’t—we don’t have the time for this! Fine, yes, he’s my friend, he’s been helping me fly since I lost my tailfin, that’s what all the stuff is. His name is Barry—”

Taako startles when she says his name, human words in a dragon’s mouth, and Lup just grins at him, turning her grin up to the humans watching—they’ve noticed too, she thinks, if the way they’re all staring at her like she’s evil incarnate means anything. Lup ruffles her wings, and snorts.

How to sum up her feelings for Barry in a way Taako will understand? Well. She knows how. “And I want to flock with him,” she finishes, curling her tail in a loose arc around Barry.

“You want to—” Taako cuts himself off. “That’s a human,” he says.

“I’m aware,” Lup says, and hisses. “Humans aren’t so different from us, Taako, they’re—not exactly like us, but they’re trying to survive like we are, and Barry’s the best of them. Now _please,_ get out of here! Get somewhere safe! I swear I’ll find you again, there’s a ravine back south, you’ll know it because I’ve been there for a month, we can meet there.” She takes a half-leap closer to her brother, butting her head against his. “Please,” she repeats, and she steps back to Barry.

“You always surprise me,” Taako mutters, “can’t have one chill day, with you around.” But he spreads his wings and takes to the sky, darting through the hole Lup blew, and soaring up until he’s broken through the clouds, and Lup can’t see him anymore. She sags with her relief, letting her wings droop.

She’s so fucking done with all of this. She just wants to flock with Barry and not deal with the king ever again—is that really so much to ask for?

Taako leaving must be enough to scare the rest of the Vikings into motion, as those watching from above start to slide into the ring, between the gaps in the metal wide enough for them. Lup hisses, drawing her wings up wide. Nobody is getting to Barry, nobody!

“Lup,” Barry says, pushing at her snout, “you have to get out of here, please—”

“I’m tired of hiding,” Lup tells him, and tackles the closest human to the ground. The weapon they were holding, something metal and sharp, clatters to the floor, and Lup leaps off of them, knocking one human’s legs out from under them with as sweep of the tail, smacking another in the face with a wing, and kicking out with a back paw at a third. She shoots blasting-fire at a group of four humans charging her, sending them all scattering, and whirls around to snap at a human too close to her tail for comfort. She paces a circle around Barry as she does all of this, driving humans _back_ and _away_ and keeping Barry safe.

A new human comes charging at her—not by sliding down from above and running, like the others, but from the metal door leading into the ring. Lup pounces and pins the human down—they smell of blood and she flares her wings out wide as she builds up flames. Something about them is familiar, in a faint sense—they do smell a little like Barry, under everything else, but in the same way Lucretia smells of Barry, the same way she might smell of Taako.

Lup hisses. The human glares back at her with hatred, and Lup’s almost impressed that there’s no trace of fear in their eyes.

But—but if they smell like Barry, and she _knows_ Barry has family here, she met his sister, didn’t she? She can’t just…

Lup stops, swallowing back her flames. She glances to Barry, and he looks like he’s about to break down.

“Barry—” she starts, but before she can finish, something heavy slams into her head, and Lup snarls, trying to call her fire back up. Before she can, there’s another human on her, and then two—the one she’s pinning slips out while another slams her jaws into the ground, keeping her held down with their weight. Lup would be able to fight, but there’s humans crushing her wings and keeping her pinned down in every direction—she tries to blast fire, but someone shoves something sharp-smelling over her jaws before she can, and it’s tight enough that she can barely open her mouth to speak, let alone flame.

She growls, and lashes her tail, the only part of her she can still move. She flits her eyes around until she catches Barry out of the corner of them, and sees one of the humans she met before—Magnus, holding him back, as he tries to struggle to reach her.

“Don’t hurt her!” he’s yelling, and, “Magnus, let me go!”

Magnus doesn’t look happy, but he’s keeping Barry away from her and Lup hates him and everybody pinning her down. She’s aware of sharp-smells and chains pinning her wings to her body, and then she’s dragged into a cage and she can’t even scream before she’s plunged, once again, into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, shoving taako into a cage: get the fuck out of here!! this is a blup story you aren't allowed to come make it a twins story!!!
> 
> in other news, i have learned my fucking lesson in that if i have taako and lup in a scene together for too long, the story will inevitably become about them, rather than whatever the hell was actually supposed to be happening. so...rip him. 
> 
> this is also one of my favorite chapters! i just really love this scene in the movie, yall, it's...so sweet. i mean, really upsetting when toothless is captured, but i always loved that toothless came all the way to save hiccup. 
> 
> next chapter in a week!


	13. barry has several conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup's been captured and Barry can't take on an entire village of humans on his own. Basically? Things have gone to shit.

Magnus is stupidly strong for being so much younger than him, and despite all of Barry’s best efforts, Magnus drags him out of the ring. He’s stuck watching as Lup is locked up in a cage again, and nobody listens when he yells for them to let her out. He promised her she wouldn’t be stuck in the dark again, why isn’t anybody listening to him?

“They’re going to kill her, Magnus!” Barry protests, spinning around on Magnus once he’s let free. He can’t get into the ring, he already knows—it’s full of people, and they’re all armed. But he wants to try, and he’s half-tempted to growl at Magnus like Lup would. “She’s trapped again, and it’s my fault, I have to try and help!”

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Magnus says, sounding uncomfortable. “Barry, I…I get she’s your friend, and everything, but…”

“But what?” Barry snaps, and Magnus actually flinches.

“I just—the flying you showed us was really cool, but she’s still a dragon. You’re really going to get yourself killed for her?”

“She’s my _friend_ ,” Barry says, “I’m not about to leave her to die. And…” he trails off, thinks back to the ring. Again, Lup said that she wanted to flock with him, and Taako startled at that, like it’s not a thing commonly done. Maybe it’s just Barry’s hope getting the better of him, but with how fucked everything currently is, he deserves something light. “And I love her,” he says, because honestly, he does, and there’s no denying that to himself at this point.

“You love her,” Magnus says, and he takes a step back. “Like—love-love?”

“Yes, love-love,” Barry says, fighting back the urge to roll his eyes. “And she’s going to die if you keep me trapped here, so I’m going to go save her, thank you.” Magnus wordlessly steps out of the way when Barry passes him, just staring as though Barry’s gone mad. Maybe he has, who knows? It’s not like he’s going to be able to take on the entire village, but he just has to get close enough to break Lup free, and then they can run away together, and Barry won’t have to deal with anything ever again.

He’s not even halfway to the ring when Davenport comes across him, gives him a Look, and starts dragging him into the nearest building, which happens to be the Great Hall. Just staring at the ring from here…what is he supposed to do? He’s just one dude, and Lup can’t flame, and he watched her wings get chained to her, and he’s got no way to snap those without heat or a key, of which he has neither.

It’s his fault. If he hadn’t yelled when Taako attacked him—but then _Taako_ would be dead, and he doesn’t want that, either!

The door swings shut behind the both of them with a muffled thud, and Barry pulls himself free. If he can somehow convince Davenport to let Lup go, maybe…

“What is this?” Davenport asks, and something in his voice reminds Barry of being a child and getting in trouble, caught in the middle of a lie. But he’s not ten, so he doesn’t cower back. He’s got too much to lose. “I thought you wanted to learn how to kill dragons, but you’re over here _befriending_ them?” He says it as though it’s a joke, something impossible, like everything Barry has with Lup is a lie, and Barry bristles.

“Yes!” he says. “Yes! I know! I get it! Sure, maybe I should’ve told you, but you obviously don’t understand! Be mad at me, fine, but leave Lup out of this!”

“And what’s with the growling?” Davenport adds. “In the ring, you did it too—do you honestly believe you’re talking to the dragons?”

“I don’t believe, I _am,”_ Barry says. “Lup—that’s her name. And she was just trying to protect me, and Taako wouldn’t’ve attacked if you hadn’t hit the bars with a hammer. Leave her out of this.”

“You’re crazy,” Davenport says, and that one maybe hurts, a bit. Barry ignores it, because if he is crazy, so what? He’d rather be with Lup that doing anything in Berk, that’s for sure. “Are you trying to protect the dragon? Do you know how many of us they’ve killed? How many houses they’ve destroyed, how much food they’ve taken?”

“And we kill them right back!” Barry counters, advancing on Davenport as though he’s Lup, acting bigger than he actually is. It must work, because Davenport steps away from him, confused. “We’ve killed thousands of them, Dav, and they’re not—they’re not some dumb animal! They’re smart, and they’re trapped. They have this king on their island, he—”

“Their island?” Davenport says, cutting Barry off, and Barry’s brain comes to a standstill. “You found the nest?”

“No,” Barry says, desperate. “No, Dav, I—you can’t fight it, there’s a king, he eats dragons, there’s—”

“You found the nest and then decided not to tell anybody? Your parents were killed by dragons. Friends of yours were killed by dragons. Yet you find their nest and keep it a secret, and for what? Your _pet dragon!”_ Davenport practically yells the last two words, and Barry really, really wishes he could just hop onto Lup’s back and disappear into the sky, preferably forever.

“She’s not a pet,” he says. _As if someone as wonderful as he could ever be kept as a pet, as if dragons aren’t like us, as if I’m not stupidly in love with her._ “She’s a sentient being with hopes and dreams, just like us. She’s my friend, and I’m hers, and you know what? Fine! Go sailing into the ocean to find the nest, for all I care, and get yourself killed! Only a dragon can find the island, and I’m not helping!”

Barry breathes heavily. Try finding an island when the only person who can talk to dragons isn’t with you, he wants to add. He doesn’t, just glares right back at Davenport, because Lup’s right, he’s tired of hiding, and he wants it to be over so he can work on Lup’s new tailfin, so he can exist with her and not worry about all _this._

“A dragon can find the island?” Davenport asks, and Barry goes deathly still. He’s fucked up, he’s fucked up, they already have Lup in chains and he doesn’t have to be there to help them, not if they have boats and do, actually, know the general direction the nest is in.

“No,” Barry says, but Davenport is already turning to walk out. “Dav, no, you can’t—”

“You said it in the ring, Barry,” Davenport says, pushing open the door and not looking back. “You’re not one of us.”

The door slams shut when he leaves, and Barry can’t find it in him to move.

* * *

Barry isn’t allowed at the docks while they’re stocking the ships—he’s shoved away by everyone he crosses, usually with weapons. And he can’t fight any of them, he’s realizing, so he watches the ships from above, staring down at them from the cliffs. They’re going to war, and while Barry would be fine just killing the king, they’re going to kill a lot of innocent dragons along the way, and Barry doesn’t even think some sharp metal is going to do much against a dragon that eats other dragons.

His heart breaks when Lup is brought out—she’s still got a band around her mouth, to keep her from breathing fire, and she’s been attached to a long slab of wood with chains around each of her paws, locked in place onto the wood. There’s two arched iron bars that press closer to her, keeping her from spreading her wings, but despite that all, Lup struggles, her chains rattling as she tries to tug them free.

She’s nervous, despite her shrieking and roaring at anybody who comes close. Her wings ruffle, and her ear-flaps are pinned back, and she keeps looking around like she’s trying to find an escape route.

They haven’t ruined the tailfin Barry made for her, though, and her saddle and everything also seem to be fine—so if Barry could _get to her,_ they’d be up in the sky in no time.

He just can’t get to her.

Two people approach Lup, and she growls at them, baring her teeth. They both ignore her, opening the large wooden collar they’re holding, and fastening it around her neck. Davenport passes by, and locks it, Barry thinks with a key of sorts, but he’s too far away to tell. With that done, another person attaches a hook to the bars, and Lup’s cage is lifted into the air by a chain, and swung over to be set down in a ship. She shrieks, and looks frantically around—and catches his eyes.

“Barry!” she yells, “Barry, I—” but her words are swept up by the wind once she’s lowered into the ship. 

The ships set off a minute later, and Barry watches them, watches Lup, until they’ve long disappeared into the distance, and he’s just watching the waves. He stays there until he can’t bear to anymore, until he can’t bear to be alone, and he sets off down the cliffs. He doesn’t even realize he’s heading to the ravine until he’s in the forest, doesn’t even realize that’s where he always wants to go, because that’s where Lup will be.

Barry snorts. She won’t be there, but he’s already failed her, so he might as well keep walking.

He nearly has a heart attack, when he enters the ravine and sees a Night Fury lying in the center of it—but it’s a Night Fury with two black tailfins. Barry ignores Taako, and wanders over to the rock he sat on, when he first drew Lup, all that time ago. Their art’s long since been erased by wind and rain and them trampling it while trying to figure out flight. He can see Taako, from here, and the Night Fury lifts his head to stare at Barry. His eyes are dull, but Barry’s pretty sure that one’s not from being stuck in a cage for over a month.

“Oh,” Taako says. “You.”

“Yeah, me,” Barry says, but then it hits him that Lup only understands his own language because she’s been around him, so he quickly repeats it in Draconic. Taako’s ears twitch.

“You can still talk,” Taako says, resting his head back on his paws. “Thought I was hallucinating that bit. Your pronunciation is kinda fucked, though.”

“Not being a dragon does that,” Barry says, propping his elbows up on his knees and leaning his chin on a hand. “Why aren’t you going after her? You can fly.”

“Tried,” Taako says, and his wings ruffle. “Couldn’t get close without some human shooting at me. And Lup kept yelling at me to go before the king nabbed me, so.” He curls his tail to hide his face. “Figured either way I’d get got, and then there’d be nobody left to save her. Course, now nobody’s even tying, but.” He sighs, his breath making his tailfins flutter. The moth-chewed edges of them are frayed in a way that makes Barry wonder if it’s painful. “You’re not going after her, either.”

“I can’t fight everyone,” Barry says. “I can’t fight one human, actually. And I can’t fly without Lup.”

“You flew together?” Taako asks, pricking an ear. Barry nods, and Taako hums something low in his throat. “Well shit. Lup wasn’t lying to me about the flocking thing, then.” He snorts, and stretches, pulling himself up as he does so, staring at Barry with a tilted head. “Has she told you what that means? Flocking?”

“It’s…bonds,” Barry guesses, “between family?”

“And others,” Taako says. “I don’t know how humans do love, but for us, you love someone—and I mean romantically here, it’s different for other relationships—and you go and fly and impress them. And if it’s good enough and both parties say yes, well. You’re flocking.” He sighs, flaps his wings a few times before tucking them in, approaching Barry. Barry lets him, and doesn’t reach out to touch Taako, even when he stops just a few paces away from Barry, staring down at him with a tilted head, ears all flared out.

“Why aren’t you attacking me?” Taako asks. It’s such an abrupt change of topic that Barry’s quiet for a solid five minutes—he’s still trying to process the fact that Lup likes him back.

“I love her,” he says, rather than answer Taako. Taako huffs, tossing his head.

“Adorable,” he says, dryly. “If we all survive this, this day is fucking weird already, you have my approval to go do whatever. I’m not gonna keep Lup from flocking with a human if that’s what you two want. Doesn’t answer my question, though.”

Why isn’t he attacking Taako? Well. That one’s easy. “Because I’m not mad at you,” he says. “It’s not like we’ve been in any way nice to you guys. You were left locked in a cage for over a month, and I doubt anybody bothered to check in on you. And you had no proof I hadn’t hurt your sister but my word, and seeing as I look just like all the humans who’ve fucked you up, that doesn’t mean much. I don’t blame you.”

“That’s…” Taako shakes himself, taking a step back. “That’s not how things work. You attack us, we attack you—why the fuck did Lup have to go fall in love and then leave me to deal with it!” There’s a bit of a desperate whine in his tone, and he slaps his tail against the ground. “I came out of that cage expecting to flee, and now I’m here, talking to a human that can talk back, for some reason. What is this? What’s any of this?”

“The world is pretty confusing,” Barry says, not really sure what else to say. Taako barks out a laugh.

“Yeah, that’s for fucking sure,” he says, turning in a circle with a growl. “Can’t believe Lup went and broke every societal norm without me.” He slumps to the ground and sighs.

“I’m sorry we didn’t free you,” Barry says, and he stands, taking a cautious step towards Taako. An ear twitches his direction, but Taako otherwise doesn’t move, so Barry sits down beside him, being careful not to accidentally brush Taako’s scales. “Me and Lup, we tried, once. But someone came before we could get everyone, and it was all a mess, and we didn’t try again because right after that I had to kill you, and, well, you saw how that went.”

“You did a bad job at killing me,” Taako says, muffled into his wing. He glances up at Barry. “Thanks. For that.”

“No problem,” Barry says. The two of them don’t speak, but Barry’s okay with that. He wants…there has to be some way to save Lup. There’s two of them, him and Taako, isn’t that enough?

Wait. Maybe it isn’t, but…none of the kids went on the boats, and Lucretia and Magnus know what’s up. And he does want to finish freeing the ring dragons…

“Taako,” Barry says, “I think I know how to rescue Lup.”

“Oh?” Taako lifts his head.

“We know where they’re going,” Barry says, standing up, “so we just have to get to the nest, and even if I can’t fly, you can, and so can the other dragons in the ring—we free them, I explain things to the rest of the kids, and we fly in and rescue Lup. If everyone’s on the island trying to fight the king, they won’t be paying any attention to Lup, so we can save her. And if everyone sees humans and dragons working together…”

_They’ll have to listen to me,_ Barry thinks. _They’ll have to see this can work, that we’re more alike than we all think._

“That’s a very dumb idea,” Taako says, standing himself and stretching out his wings. “One, it hinges on the fact that I let you ride me.”

“And?” Barry asks, holding out his hand. “I know how. Me and Lup fly great, together. And it’s just until we’re to the island—then we’ll free Lup, and I’ll be off your back.”

Taako closes his eyes, and opens them after a long sigh. “The things I do for Lup,” he mutters, and tucks his wings in so Barry can climb onto his back. Barry does so—it’s weird, without a saddle, just sitting on the scales, but he wraps his arms around Taako’s neck to keep himself steady, bent over low. Taako shifts below him, and spreads his wings. “I refuse to speak human words with my mouth.”

“Lup called me Bluejay, before we exchanged names,” Barry says.

“Bluejay,” Taako says, and he holds himself tall, spreading his wings. “I can work with that.”

Taako leaps into the air, and Barry nearly goes to adjust the tailfin so they can veer left and start heading to Berk, before remembering oh, right, that’s just with Lup. He tilts his body left, instead, and Taako pricks an ear but goes with him, and soon they’re speeding over the forest, a straight-shot to Berk.

It doesn’t take much time before they’re landing, Taako diving through the hole in the ring, and Barry slipping off his back before they've fully landed, hopping the few feet to the ground as he goes for the first cage. “Can you grab everyone?” he asks Taako, fiddling with the lever to pull up and free the first of the caged dragons. “Lucretia, Magnus, Avi, Johann, and we’ll probably have to take Angus because he’ll sneak along otherwise.”

Taako snorts laughter, and Barry turns to look at him. “Bluejay,” Taako says, “you do remember that I’m a dragon, right? I go try to grab your friends, and I get stabbed in the face.”

“…I forgot about that,” Barry mutters, and Taako huffs, not rudely.

“I see why Lup likes you,” he says, and he joins Barry to nudge at the lever with his nose. “You get your weird friends. I’ll figure out how to free everyone, and tell them you’re not too awful.”

“I—yeah, that’s smarter,” Barry says, and Taako preens, smug. If he were Lup, Barry would shove at him, but he’s not, so Barry just shakes his head and turns to walk back out the ring. But when he does, he sees that he doesn’t even need to—everyone is already gathered near the entrance, staring at him.

“Uh,” Barry says.

“We saw you flying over,” Angus says, and he points up at the midday sky. “It’s not that dark.”

“Guess that solves that, then,” Barry says with a shrug, and he walks back over to Taako, opening the first cage. “Well. Guys, this is Taako, and we have a dumb plan.”

“Your dumb plan,” Taako clarifies, eyeing the Zippleback that’s creeping out of its cage. “We’re friendly,” he tells them, and the Zippleback doesn’t flame at them, but they don’t seem fully comfortable, either.

“I understood none of that,” Avi says, cheerfully. “Still not sure what all the growling is about.”

Barry flushes. Did he really—well, the fact that Taako was the only one to answer him means that yes, he did forget to switch back to Human. “Sorry,” he says, “Just—me and Taako are going to save Lup. And we want your help.” He moves over to free the next dragon, and out comes a Nightmare. Barry does a quick count in his head—there’s just one filled cage left, with a Nadder, which means there’s six of them and four dragons.

“You want us to…what, exactly?” Lucretia asks.

“We’re going to ride to the island,” Barry says, and he holds his hand out for the Nightmare. “I’m Barry,” he tells them, in soft Draconic. “Can you help us?”

“He’s mostly okay,” Taako adds, which really isn’t much help at all, but Taako’s already wandering off to sniff at Angus, who’s holding still. He doesn’t look scared, though, and Barry is pretty sure Taako won’t hurt anyone, so he turns his attention back to the Nightmare.

“Help with what?” the Nightmare asks, looking up to the sky above them.

“We’re trying to save my friend, Lup,” Barry says, “she was brought to the nest. We…” he doesn’t even know if this can be done, but he wants to try, anyways. “We also want to try and kill the king.”

The Nightmare growls. “Oh, I’ll kill the king, all right,” they say. “I’ll help.” They nod to him, before heading over to Lucretia, for some reason, but the Nightmare just tilts their head, and Lucretia watches them back. That should work fine, Barry thinks. He gets the same agreement from the Zippleback, and Avi and Johann agree to ride together with her. Taako’s having great fun grabbing Angus by the back of his shirt and carrying him up to the top of the ring, so Angus can just ride with them. That leaves Magnus with the last dragon, and Barry opens the final cage.

“Carey!” Taako calls, dropping Angus and rushing over to the Nadder, apparently Carey. “I thought you died! Kilian’s been missing you!” He bumps against the Nadder, who ruffles her wings and noses him back.

“Just been trapped here,” she says, shaking herself. Then she seems to take in the humans, and she narrows her eyes. Barry waves, though Magnus stays still, which might be for the best. He did punch her, after all. “What’s this all about?”

“Oh,” Taako says, “Carey, that’s Bluejay. Bluejay, this is Carey, she’s mine and Lup’s old nest-sitter. She’s not much older than us, though, so don’t ask who thought giving a slightly bigger dragonet responsibility was a good idea. Carey, Lup’s been caught by humans, they’re heading for the nest, we're going to go save her and kill the king. She and Bluejay want to flock together, I’m in this because she’s my sister and Bluejay is okay for a human, I guess.”

Carey blinks. “I guess that sounds like something Lup would do,” she says. She shakes, and the spikes that make up her ruff rattle as she does so. “I’m also down for killing the king.”

“Cool,” Barry says, and Carey starts when he speaks her language. Barry grins at her, or, as best he can when dragon grinning is all in the eyes, before turning to Magnus. “Now, be nice.”

“I punched her,” Magnus whispers, but he approaches, slowly. Carey eyes him over. Thankfully, there’s no fight, and after a minute, the two of them seem to get along just fine.

“Okay, with that all done,” Barry calls, getting everyone’s attention. He grabs some ropes from where they’re left against the wall and gets to work fastening everyone together. It won’t work for the long run, but hopefully it’ll work well enough for this particular trip. Taako is the worst about it—he keeps grabbing Angus.

“He’s _tiny!”_ is Taako’s justification, and Angus protests despite not knowing what Taako is saying. Taako flaps into the air, Angus dangling from his jaws. “I’ve seen dragonets bigger than this thing!”

“And I know, but we have to rescue Lup, so please let him go,” Barry repeats. Taako rolls his eyes, but lands, letting Barry tie the final knots, and settle himself on Taako’s back, Angus behind him. “Now,” he says, and Taako, sensing the tone, hovers a bit in the air, so Barry can look down at everyone. “Flying is easy so long as you don’t fall off. Me and Taako will lead the way, just focus on holding on.” He slips into Draconic, and adds, “follow us.”

And with that, they’re off in the air, heading for Lup, heading for the rest of the Vikings, heading for the king.

“You really think this is going to work?” Taako asks, once they’re mostly just coasting on a breeze, far enough away from the king that they don’t have to start focusing, yet. Barry shrugs.

“I hope it does,” he says, and Taako huffs something like _wonderful confidence, there._ Barry snorts and urges Taako faster, a thing he’s happy to oblige—turns out, Taako enjoys fanciful flying just as much as Lup does.

Every wingbeat brings them closer to Lup, and gods, does Barry hope this works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't actually have anything to say in these endnotes.......next chapter in a week!


	14. lup meets the king

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup's trapped and being brought by the humans to her own nest, not to hurt their shitty king, but just to hurt the dragons trapped by him. What fun.

Lup _hates_ being trapped.

That should go without saying, of course. She’s chained down from every angle—she’s standing, but that doesn’t mean much when she can really only move her head, and even that is stopped after a second by the various chains and the giant wooden collar locked around her neck. If she could use fire, she’d already be free, but there’s a heavy band around her jaws. If she could move her paws, she could claw the band off in a heartbeat—but she can’t. If she could fly away, she could find somebody to get the chains off of her—but she, once again, _can’t._

She still has to try, though. She absently tugs at her chains as she stares up at the sky, knowing that this isn’t going to get her anywhere, but not wanting to just _give up_. She’s surrounded by humans who want her dead, and the only reason they haven’t killed her yet is that they’re trying to use her to get to her nest. She can understand their plans, for all they can’t hear her. They’re going to kill her flock. Not the king—no human is strong enough to take on the king, hell, she’s powerful and she’s pretty sure she couldn’t take on the king—but they don’t care about that. They don’t care that the king is trapping them all.

Lup snarls and snaps at a human that comes a bit too close, and grins when they back away, her tail lashing. That, at least, she can still move. Not far, and it’s not going to help her escape, but she’s been tripping up as many humans as she can, and that’s something, at least.

This is better than being shoved in a dark cage. Not by much, but here she can see and she does like that. She hates the movement, though—she’s in a ship, she thinks, based on what she’s heard, and it moves and rocks with the waves. Normally Lup would be fine with that, and she could adjust her body so it didn’t feel like she was swaying, but she can’t move, so she’s constantly being thrown off balance.

Though, granted, it's not like she's ever been on any ships before, and the one half-rotted one she and Taako poked around in as hatchlings doesn't really count. Maybe she just hates ships. 

Another tug on her chains. The sharp tang of metal doesn’t even register, anymore. She hasn’t seen Taako since she told him to go away, and for that, she’s thankful. She’s not sure that he will get help, but she’s hoping he’ll find Barry, and they can figure something out. If she can just get the band off, Lup’s home free, but she needs at least one paw to do that. 

Approaching her is the human she pinned in the ring, the one she didn’t kill. Lup hisses at him—Davenport, she’s learned is his name, and knowing that she is glad her wariness was right and she didn’t kill Barry’s dad—but he doesn’t even flinch. Lup narrows her eyes. Yes, she can’t do anything to him, but does he really have to act like that? The rest of the humans have been keeping away. She twists her head as best she can so see what Davenport is doing, and—

He’s tugging at the straps of her saddle.

“No!” she yells, struggling to lean herself as far away from Davenport as she can. The saddle and straps are _hers,_ and nobody is taking them from her—it’s already astonishing that nobody’s fucked up the gears when they were chaining her up. “That’s mine, mine and Barry’s, you can’t touch it!”

That gets Davenport to step back, and Lup huffs, tossing her head as best she can to glare at Davenport. He’s _stunned,_ and Lup wishes she could move so she could sit back and carry her pride tall.

“That’s right,” she says, low, “ _Barry._ Never thought a dragon could speak Human, did you?”

Granted. _Barry_ is the only thing she can say in Human, and even then, it’s hard. But Lup owed it to him to say his name correctly, because names are important and worthy of learning. The rest of Human, she’s not in a rush to learn. The sounds are too complicated, and Barry, the only human she actually wants to talk to, can understand her own language just fine. It’s little bit unfair that he can talk to dragons and she can’t talk to humans, but she’s only upset about that in situations like this, where she’d love to be able to insult a human in a way they could understand.

“Barry!” she sing-songs, grinning at Davenport, and swinging her head best she can to look at the rest of the humans on this ship, most of which have stopped to stare at her. “Barry, Barry, Barry! He’s right! None of you know the first thing about dragons, and I think I know more about humans that you do about me.” She narrows her eyes, flashes her teeth out in a mockery of a human-grin. This is _fun!_ “Once I get free,” and shit, hopefully when she does, Barry’s already here, because she’ll need him to fly, “you’re all going to—”

There’s a buzz in the air, and Lup goes shock-still, her ear-flaps trembling and swiveling as she tries to find the sound. _Come,_ it hisses, and Lup looks to the left, hardly noticing the ship turning to follow her gaze. She doesn’t want to follow it—she’ll be stuck without a way to fly away, stuck on the island she hates with the king she hates with the humans she hates. But she can’t block the sound out, or ignore it—all she can do is get to the nest and hide and hope for the best.

The ship creaks as it turns, narrowly avoiding rocks and the remains of other ships, none of which Lup has seen before. Then again, she doesn’t usually fly this low, or if she does, she’s not coming from this way. Her wings ruffle with her nerves, and she lowers her head as the buzzing grows, along with the faint chatters of other dragons.

She’s on a ship with humans. She’s leading the humans right to her flock, and she can’t do anything to stop it. She can’t yell out a warning, because if the king finds her, she’s dead, along with who knows how many others that will be killed along the way. She just…humans are loud. They’ll know. They’ll escape. Even the dragons on the island she doesn’t know, they’re bonded because they’ve all survived the king so far, and Lup doesn’t want her capture to be the thing that finally kills them all.

The ship comes to a stop before it hits land. The volcano is surrounded by a beach of pebbles, and Lup watches as humans hop off their ships, leaving her behind. She’s _alone,_ though, which means it’ll be her best time to escape, so she resumes her efforts to get free, yanking her head every way to try and snap the chain there. She tugs until the air goes dead silent, and then she stops to look back at the island.

The humans have set up various giant weapons—launching-type weapons, she thinks, for rocks. If they have a more specific name, Lup doesn’t care, because they’re all pointed at her nest and dragons inside that are friends and flockmates. Lup tenses. If the air is silent like that…

The weapons launch as one, and a volley of rocks smash into the side of the volcano, breaking open a hole. Lup squints, but she’s too far away, and it’s too dark inside, for her to see if anybody is in there. With how many dragons are in the flock, though, she can bet a lot of them. At least the buzzing has stopped—everyone’s here, so there’s no need for it, and it’ll make fleeing a lot easier, if she can manage to get herself out of the chains.

The humans are doing their own human things, though Lup still watches them. Not like she can do much else—she’s mostly just tugging at her chains for show. It’s not going to work, but she can’t think of anything better. The humans launch a flaming ball of something into the hole, and Lup sees dragons, covering the walls, packed so tightly together they have to be standing on wings and tails. She winces, sympathetic.

And then the dragons, as one, start fleeing out of the hole. None of them bother to swoop down on the humans, of which there’s a lot, and they’re all trying to hit dragons. But no, dragons go up and away, which can only mean the king is coming, and Lup snarls, jerking her head as far up as she can get it like maybe trying the same thing for the thousandth time will make a difference.

She’s not built for brute strength—she’s built to be agile and fast and nimble. She has her blasting-fire to make up for that, but when she can’t use it, well, blasting-fire is a shitty weapon, then. She digs her claws into the wood underneath her, and tries to force her jaws open wide. The band stops her before she can get far enough.

She hates everyone who did this to her, who refused to listen to Barry, who refused to try and understand her, and just went right to chaining her up. She would’ve helped, if she had been asked! If Barry asked hey, I want to kill the king, want to join me? Her answer would’ve been yes in a heartbeat! Humans can’t all be bad, and if they had just been more willing to listen—

No use wondering about that, now. Another useless tug at her chains, and she’s about to try again, when she hears a roar that makes her cower back in her bindings.

The king smashes his way out of the mountain. Lup’s never actually seen the king, in his entirety—he spent his days under the lava, and the few times he came out, Lup was actively trying to fly as far away as possible, and didn’t have time to waste on looking behind her.

He’s somehow bigger than she imagined. His entire paw is at least twice the size of her, which is saying a lot, because Lup’s medium-sized when it comes to dragons. He reminds her of a rock—his scales aren’t smooth, but rough and ragged, and the multiple rows of spikes down his back are less rounded and sharp, more like spires of rock rising out of his body. Alongside his body and down his legs he’s got some sharper spikes, a vibrant red against the blue-gray of his body. His tail is spiked and clubbed at the end, and when he rears up, Lup catches sight of two wings, though they’re tucked up to his body. When he smashes back down onto the fleeing crowd of humans, he stares down at them with six eyes.

Ah. So this is how Lup dies—trapped and bound and unable to escape when her monster of a king comes looking for her. She should’ve just explained everything to Barry when she had the chance. It wouldn’t change much, but at least he’d know that she loves him in every sense of the word.

The king roars, breathing out a stream of fire all over the ships. Lup’s fireproof, but realizes that oh, the ships aren’t, and she might not die of flames but she sure can die if the smoke suffocates her! She struggles harder—she can’t see anything happening on the island, but she can hear the king, so he’s not dead. She blinks to try and stop her eyes from burning—she should be able to keep the smoke out of her eyes, but there’s so much and it’s so thick and she’s not supposed to spend this long stuck in the middle of a blazing ship. The flames haven’t touched her, yet, which is one good thing.

Lup hears a whistling shriek, and her head shoots up, ear-flaps pricked. It’s followed by an explosion, with an aftershock of purple she’d know from anywhere.

“Taako!” she roars, catching sight of her brother through the smoke, and—Barry! Taako didn’t fuck up, he went and got help! She tugs hard again on her chains, snapping the one keeping her head restrained, and roars again. She sees a few more dragons, and they’ve all got humans with them. Is this…is this the rescue party? That means…

That means some humans listened.

“I’m down here!” Lup yells, and watches Taako swivel towards the sound of her voice, before diving down towards her. He lands on the ship heavily, and it rocks, but Lup doesn’t care—that’s her brother! And Barry hops off of his back, running over to her, and he grabs one end of the band around her mouth and yanks it off.

There’s another human here, too, a little hatchling that Taako shakes off his back before rushing over to her, blasting fire at her chains. He misses, and just shoots a hole in the side of the ship, instead. He’s shaking, Lup notices, and she stretches her head out as far as she can to bump her brother.

“Taako, you have to get out of here,” Barry says, and Lup blasts a chain keeping her paws stuck, before twisting and trying to get the ones behind her. Barry works at the wooden collar around her neck, trying to yank it open. “There’s a hatchling, you can’t—” said hatchling, Lup notices, is trying to help Lup get free—he’s got a long bit of metal he’s trying to pry under the chains at her back legs. He also doesn’t seem to have any idea what’s being talked about, which is when it hits Lup that Barry’s been speaking in her own language this whole time, and she’s unable to stop the warmth that rises up in her.

“Fuck the hatchling!” Taako roars, and he fires another shaky shot that nearly hits Barry, and doesn’t hit anything keeping Lup trapped. He’s terrified, Lup realizes, but he’s also no help and he’s going to get them all killed if he can’t fix his aim. “Lup, I’m—”

“I can use my own fire,” Lup says, cutting him off. She turns to look at him, and narrows her eyes. “Barry can help me the rest of the way; get the fuck out of here and keep…well, hurting the king. I really have no idea what your plan is here.”

“There isn’t much of one,” Taako says, trying to bite through the metal bars keeping her wings trapped. He doesn’t get far, and winces, shaking his head. “Lup—”

“I promise I’ll find you,” she says. “Now go. Please.”

“I can’t lose you again!” Taako says, moving closer to her to press up against her—he shoves Barry out of the way, who sighs but doesn’t say anything.

“You won’t. I swear it.” Lup noses Taako off of her. “We’ve got this,” she says, and she glances to Barry.

Taako doesn’t look happy. His ear-flaps are pinned, and his wings are trembling, even as he moves to snatch up the hatchling and leap back into the air. The smoke is thick in the air, and Lup coughs to try and get it out of her. Taako watches her for a second, before the hatchling manages to free himself from Taako’s grip, and clamber onto his back, and Taako flies off towards the king.

Lup twists her head to blast the chain on her hind legs—that just leaves the collar, which is what’s keeping her from moving forwards or backwards, since it’s also got a few chains to further prevent movement. It’s also the one she can’t blast because she can’t reach it, and Barry can’t yank it free.

He hisses under his breath. “It’s locked,” he says, “I don’t have anything to even begin picking that, is there—”

He’s cut off when the king’s tail comes smashing through the ship, and he just scrambles back in time to avoid being hit with a fallen pole, that smashes to the floor of the ship just in front of them. Lup ruffles her wings, her tail curled close, and she strains against her bonds. Barry, too, tries to get her out, but they only have a second of that before the king steps on the ship—with a back foot, Lup notices—and the entire thing is capsized, and they’re thrown into the ocean.

Not the deep ocean. But it’s underwater, and Lup can’t use fire underwater, and she’s still stuck. She can’t get free, she can hold her breath for a while but not long enough—Barry swims down towards her, but there’s still nothing he can do to break the collar, and she can see him getting weaker.

“You have to go,” she tries to say, and gets a mouthful of water for her troubles. They don’t both have to die down here—preferably neither of them will die, but Lup’s stuck and Barry can still swim out. He doesn’t answer her, and he keeps trying to free her until he goes limp, and Lup shrieks. She can’t—she doesn’t want to watch him _drown,_ she can’t—

Another human enters the water, one Lup thinks she’s seen before, but they’ve grabbed Barry and are pulling him out of the water before she can tell who they are. She wants to roar, but…

He chest is burning. She _needs air,_ Lup knows, and she’s glad Barry is alive but now she’s going to die and she doesn’t want that, either! She thought she would die earlier, but she didn’t, and she’s very much against the idea. She wants to spend more time with her brother, and wants to flock with Barry, she wants to do _so much,_ she wants to kill the king and free the nest and explore the world. She doesn’t want to die!

Lup closes her eyes, trying to conserve energy. It’s. It’s not a good way to go, drowning. And the water isn’t even that deep—she knows they’re close to shore, a human knows where she is, and she’s going to die anyways.

Her ear-flaps prick when she hears a splash, and she cracks open an eye to see the human that saved Barry—Davenport. She squints, but he just swims up to her, fits something into the lock on the wooden collar, and wrenches it open.

It takes Lup a second to realize she’s free, and another second after that to realize that Davenport saved her. And she’s not about to be in debt to a human, so she shoves her way out of the chains, grabbing Davenport and launching herself out of the ocean, bursting out of the water with a shower of droplets. She is, like she thought, close to the shore, and she dives for it before she loses flight, dropping Davenport onto the ground and landing on a nearby rock, shaking herself dry.

She turns, and sees Barry, and he’s just a sodden as she is, but he’s not dead, and that’s what matters. In front of her is the king—Taako’s darting around his head, narrowly missing being snapped at, there’s a human on the head of the king hitting him in the eyes with a hammer, but there’s also a few people down. A blue, spiked dragon—wait, _Carey?—_ is shaking herself, obviously grounded for the time being. A two-headed dragon with a human on either head is closer to hitting the king than getting away. A dark red dragon—one of the ones who can set themselves on fire—is trying to shake a human off it’s back, and then trying to keep the human on.

So. Rescue mission succeeded, the ‘kill the king’ part isn’t going as well. Lup looks back at Barry.

“You coming?” she asks, with her words and her eyes and her everything. Barry grins at her, and hops onto her back, settling into the saddle like it’s where he’s supposed to be. And, Lup decides, she thinks it is.

She crouches, and readies herself to fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're so close to the end!!! one more chapter and an epilogue and this story is done baby!!! or at least...this movie is. 
> 
> next chapter in a week!


	15. barry and lup fight the king

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry and Lup are together again, but that's certainly not about to solve the problem of the mad, rampaging king.

Barry’s ready to get back into the sky, and kill the king with Lup’s help. But before he can even fan out the tailfin, he hears Davenport clear his throat. He rests a hand on Lup’s side, and she thrums a soft _comfort_ when he looks down at Davenport.

“So,” Davenport says. He sounds just a bit uncomfortable, which doesn't bode too well for what's to come. “Barry, I’m sorry.” Wait, what? “I was wrong not to listen to you. Maybe I don’t understand dragons, but you do, and I ignored that.” 

“Um." Barry blinks. “Thanks?” What’s he supposed to say to that? He’s gone through so much in the past ten minutes—failing to free Lup, him nearly drowning, Lup nearly drowning, and Davenport saving the both of them. It’s just—it’s too much, and Barry hardly knows how to process any of that, especially when just a few hours ago, Davenport was pissed at him. 

“I just want to say that I’m proud of you,” Davenport says, and oh. Barry’s not tearing up. “And…be safe up there. And, uh, Lup?” Barry nearly winces at the attempt at her name, but Davenport’s _trying,_ and he wasn’t expecting that. “I’m sorry to you, as well.”

“We’ll try,” Barry says, because that, at least, is an answer he can give. Lup rumbles her own assent, eyeing Davenport with a look of curiosity.

Barry nods to Davenport because he has no other way to end the conversation, and leans down over Lup, fanning out the tailfin. She readies herself to leap, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Good?” she asks.

“Good,” Barry answers, and she leaps into the air and they shoot for the king. Everything around them is chaos, Barry can already tell—what little plan they did have has long since fallen apart. But he’s with Lup again, and it’s so much smoother flying with her, rather than Taako. He and Lup understand each other, much more than he understood Taako. They share a common goal, and they share a friendship, and they maybe share more, but now isn’t the time to be asking that, because they’ve got a massive king to fight.

Lup veers sharply around the king when he tries to snap at them, and rockets up into the air, hovering a bit so the both of them can see what’s going on. A second later, Taako comes up, and slams into Lup’s side with a delighted roar. Barry’s jostled, but he keeps his grip as Lup rolls with it, laughing and flapping back over to Taako.

“You don’t like any of the dragons on the island so you pick a human?” Taako asks, but there’s laughter in his tone, as he ducks under Lup and pops back up on the other side, Lup spinning to follow him, and Barry helping. It’s second nature, to do this—he can’t explain how, but it’s a partnership, not one doing more than the other.

“I like living on the edge!” Lup shoots back, and flips around in the air to dive back towards the king—Barry pulls them up sharp before they crash into him, and Lup hits him in the side with a blast of flames. Barry’s pretty sure he’s blushing, but he doesn’t have time to focus on that, because Magnus is, for some reason, on the head of the king.

“Why are you there?” he yells down to Magnus, who looks up at him and nearly loses his balance, but he catches himself on the rocky ruff of the king before he falls.

“My dragon went down!” is his answer. “This guy got her in the wing.” He kicks at the head of the king, who roars and tries to shake Magnus off.

“Okay, well, someone get him off of there!” Barry yells, and he and Lup dive down and left when the king roars and spits a stream of fire their direction. It separates them from Taako, who’s hit straight in the wing by the flames. Barry feels Lup flinch when Taako shrieks.

“He’ll be fine,” Barry mutters, hoping—Taako’s able to land far enough away from the king that he should be fine, but with the way his wing is drooping, Barry doubts he’ll be using it for a while. “This isn’t going how we wanted it to.”

“I was under the impression you didn’t have a plan,” Lup says, darting down when Avi, Johann, and the Zippleback all zip past, heading for Magnus. It’s not the smoothest flight—maybe it would’ve been better if everyone knew at least a little of the other species’ language, but Barry really didn’t have the time to do that. Despite the disharmony between humans and dragon, though, Magnus manages to leap from the head of the king to the back of the Zippleback, and all four of them land, unharmed.

“I mean, we had like, a quarter of one,” Barry says, before gasping in a choked-off breath when he sees Lucretia and the Nightmare she’s with much, much too close to being eaten. Lup notices it, too, and they race that way, Lup hitting the king in the side of the jaw with a blast of flames, enough to knock him off-kilter and break the Nightmare out of his grasp. It does, however, blow Lucretia off the Nightmare’s back, so the two of them dive down to catch her.

“Got her!” Lup yells, and they skim over the rocks so Lup can drop Lucretia, before they’re back up in the air and firing again at the king, to get his attention back onto them. “Barry, I think we have a better chance if he’s in the air, too.” Lup says. Her ears are trembling and flicking, like they were when she first brought them here, and Barry rubs her side.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asks, and she shakes herself, climbing up into the sky.

“I’m not going back under his control,” she says. “Not me, not anyone.” She reaches the peak of her climb, and flips back around, her wings thrown wide before they’re tucking in close, and Barry pulls the tailfin back in, and then they’re diving straight for the king. Barry didn’t notice the wings, but the closer they get, the better he can see them—he’s not sure a dragon this massive can even fly, but Lup’s right. They have the advantage in the sky, and as the only ones able to do anything, with the rest of the dragons down, they need all of those that they can get.

The blast of fire that explodes against the king’s wings is enough to knock him over, landing on one side with a heavy thud. Lup doesn’t look back, but Barry does it for the both of them, and, well. The king can use his wings, alright. He watches as the wings unfurl, jagged around the edges, and the king, slowly, takes to the sky. He’s after them in a second, and Lup dives down, into the ocean before she’s back up, and they’re zipping through and around and under the rock spires that circle the island.

Barry’s not scared, though. Even as the king smashes his way through the spires they dodge around, sending rocks tumbling and crashing into the ocean, he can’t find it in him to be scared. A flick from him and they’re spinning through a narrow gap, a wingbeat from Lup and they’re soaring over one just to dive under the next. The king does none of their fanciful flying, and he’s not as fast as them, either.

He absently pets at Lup’s scales with one hand, the rest of him focused on diving and dodging. Lup thrums _love_ back at him—Barry’s not entirely sure how he knows that, but he does. He hopes his touch translates the same.

“Think anyone’s ever done this before?” he asks, his words nearly swallowed by the wind, but Lup’s close enough that she can hear him no matter how softly he speaks. They duck back underwater as the king sends another spire crashing into the ocean, and come up with water drops trailing off of Lup’s wings.

“Which part?” Lup asks, and she glances up to the sky. Barry follows her gaze to see that the clouds are dark, perfect for them to hide in.

“Does it matter?” Barry asks, and Lup’s laughing as they do a final skim over the water before they climb higher and higher and higher. The wind roars in his ears, and it’s a brilliant feeling. That’s why he’s not scared, Barry thinks. He’s flying with Lup and that’s amazing enough to override everything else.

They disappear into the clouds and the sky and the king follows them. He breathes a mad blast of fire as he chases, but they know how to avoid fire—Lup darts out of the way, and keeps her climb, and the fire dies down as the king focuses on matching their speed. He can’t, and that’s a glorious thing.

The darkness is Lup’s habitat, and that’s made immediately obvious. The two of them circle the king, Barry leaned low in the saddle, practically pressed against Lup’s scales, because he doesn’t have the benefit of being the color of the night. The king, for all his six eyes, hovers and looks but doesn’t see them, and Barry plans to keep it that way.

“Don’t think just blasting him is gonna be enough,” Lup says, her voice more suggestion than sound. “But I _will_ still blast him, don’t get me wrong.”

“Aim for the wings?” Barry offers. He can’t get a great look at them, from here, but Lup edges closer, and yes—the wings are the least armored part of this dragon, and they’re already tattered. The advantage he was hoping for in the sky doesn’t seem to be much of a thing, and while grounding the king won’t do much, it’ll at least be a trapped giant. Barry has no problems trapping a dragon that’s hurt Lup and eaten others. And hopefully, then the rest of them will be able to escape, and he and Lup can fly to some far corner where the king can’t reach her.

“Yeah,” Lup agrees, and she shoots out from their cover of the clouds to blast the king. Her shot goes wide, hitting the back of the king rather than the base of the wing, but they don’t have time to worry about that. She zips out of the way before they can be seen in the light of their explosion, and they rocket back up into the clouds. The king roars, a thrum of _hate hate hate_ that even Barry can hear buzzing in his head.

Lup snaps at nothing, and presses her ears flat. “Can’t get him _out,”_ she snarls, and Barry does his best to calm her, rubbing her side. “Fucking—I cannot wait to be free of him.” She spins and dives back down, and this time, hits him dead-center in one wing, though the king snaps at her tail as they pass. The wing doesn’t even look harmed.

But it’s all they can do, until they come up with something better. They spin and dance in the sky, dodging the king when he tries to rip them down, always aiming for the wings. Lup gets in a good few shots before the king screams, more angry than hurt, and spins himself in a circle, breathing an endless stream of flames all around him. 

“Why does he have this much fire!” Lup yells, the heat oppressive at their backs. The air is choking with the king’s flames, and it’s a bit hard for Barry to breathe—it takes too much force to get himself to focus enough to actually help Lup out, as she desperately tries to jerk them out of the way. “I can’t fire for this long! What the fuck!” Another angry shriek, and she shoots upwards, spinning them out of the flames.

Or, most of them. Barry glances back, and the tailfin he made for her is on fire, not bad yet, but slowly and steadily growing. There goes their stealth, and eventually, their flight with it. The king stops his raging when he notices Lup’s flaming tail, a spark in the darkness, and he begins his slow flight towards them.

“Aaaaand we’re fucked,” Lup hisses. 

“How do you breathe fire?” Barry asks, as an idea hits him. He’s always seen green gas, before…

“Gas, then ignite it as you spit it out,” she says, and he urges her to dive. Lup does so without asking why—the fact that she trusts him this much is a lot for Barry to comprehend.

“What if you ignite it while the gas is still in the king’s mouth?”

Lup is quiet, but she nods, and tucks her wings in tighter as they dive. It’s like falling, except so much _better—_ the wind and the plummeting are there, yes, but so is Lup with him, and they streak out of the sky with Lup’s tail a fiery comet behind them. The king follows, like they knew he would, and Lup’s wobbles a bit, in the air.

“Losing balance,” she says, softly. Barry nods—it’s getting harder for him to control the tailfin, so he leaves the flying to Lup, twisting to watch the king. He knows they’re coming fast to the ground, but he can’t be scared of crashing, right now. They’re in the air for now, and if they don’t do something about the king…

The king opens his mouth, and Barry notices the gas building inside. “Lup,” he warns, and she flips, her wings still tucked as they fall, and she fires directly into the king’s mouth. His eyes go wide, but there’s nothing he can do as the fire ignites within him. Barry bites back a grin when he sees the king throw his wings out to try and slow his fall, and the wings are being eaten through by the flames burning him up within.

Lup spins back to face the ground, which is, fuck, way closer than Barry through. She throws her wings out just before they hit it, and the wind grabs them and tugs them up—they just manage to avoid falling into the mouth of the king. He smashes into the ground, fire exploding within him, and Barry ducks low over the saddle, he and Lup racing as one down the back of the king.

The tailfin is more fire than anything, but Lup still pushes herself, darting out of the way of the fires racing up the back of the king, over any spikes that might hit them. They can’t gain any altitude to go up, so they’re stuck in the thick of the smoke and flames that chase them. They’ll end up in the ocean, probably, but they can both swim, and they’ll be okay.

And then comes the tail of the king, a club swinging towards them, and Barry struggles to get the tailfin out enough for Lup to turn—she’s trying but they’re going too fast for her to slow. Barry looks back to see the tailfin fall off, and there goes that plan. He holds tight to Lup, but that does nothing, because the tail smashes into the both of them, and knocks him right off her back.

Barry yells. He doesn’t know what he yells, but it’s probably for Lup. There’s nothing but fire below him, and fire and Barry don’t mix. The flames are obvious, but he’s been struggling to breath since they were up in the clouds, and he knows that any more smoke is going to kill him outright.

Lup dives after him. She’s backlit by the flames, a dark silhouette Barry tries to reach out for. She’s beautiful, and she’s amazing, and Barry is very much in love.

Everything is bright and hot, and then all he knows is darkness.

* * *

He’s dead, Barry’s pretty sure. Death is supposed to be dark. He _hurts,_ though, his left side feels like it’s currently on fire, but if he’s dead he shouldn’t be feeling any fire. It hurts when he tries to breathe, too, so maybe he’s not dead? It’s still dark even if he isn’t.

He tries to move, but can’t push himself up, so he quickly gives up on that. It’s warm, wherever he is. A softer warmth than the hell that is the pain. And there’s…sounds, too. He can hear someone else breathing, and the beating of a heart, steady, slow beats.

And then he hears voices. First, he hears Davenport, something like _I’m so sorry,_ which is kinda a weird thing to say, but sure, okay. Then Taako: a hushed _Lup?_

And…Lup! Is she okay?

“Lup?” he whispers, and his throat screams in protest when he tries to speak.

“Negh,” he hears, a grumble, and then he can see light.

Lup’s holding him, he realizes. That’s what the darkness was—she’s wrapped her paws around him, and is holding him close to her chest. He was covered by a wing, but she’s lifted it so it’s more tented above them. He twists out of her grasp, and is instantly pulled into a hug by Davenport. Barry just goes with it, because a second later Lup’s tackled by Taako, and he’s not going to get in the middle of that.

He does, however, notice that the saddle is torn up, and the gears and wires that made the tailfin work are little more than burnt scraps of twisted metal, some still stuck around her tail. Barry tries to get up, to fix it, but moving is hard so he gives up.

“I’m so glad you aren’t dead,” Davenport says, and Barry nods. He’s glad he isn’t dead, too. And that’s as far as he can take that thought, because Lup’s thrown Taako off of her, and she runs over to him, nosing at him. The saddle looks even worse up close—one of the straps has been burnt clear off, the other is in two pieces, and it’s nearly slipped off of her entirely.

Davenport’s staring at her. “Thank you,” he says, finally, and Lup tilts her head and touches her nose to Davenport’s hand.

“You’re welcome,” she says in her best Human—rough, but recognizable. Davenport stares at her, stunned.

“I told you they were as smart as us,” Barry says, and he reaches up to scratch her cheek. She purrs, a soft sound, and Barry wants to hear that sound forever. To Lup, he asks, “you said something about us flocking?”

Lup’s purring, somehow, gets louder. “I’d love to,” she says, and Barry grins at her, overwhelmed by emotion and knows that somehow, Lup loves him right back.

And then his body realizes just what he’s been through today, and he very much does pass out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter and then this story is done hell yeah!! we've almost made it!!!
> 
> in other news i recently read the newest wings of fire book, dragonslayer, and like. damn. i saw the summary of the book was 'human perspective of the world they share with dragons' and was like. is it. is it gonna be about humans and dragons finding out the other is sentient. and it WAS and i had a grand time reading it. seriously those types of story are my fucking jam...relationships between humans and dragons in worlds like that are always so much fun!! also humans speaking dragon....dragons speaking human,...what the fuck YES PLEASE i didn't expect to be catered to. 
> 
> final chapter in a week!


	16. lup and barry change the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since the fight with the king, and Lup's mostly spent it waiting for Barry to wake up.

Barry’s been asleep for a week. And Lup gets it, she really does, he did go and lose his whole entire leg, which like, great going on his part. Or, her part, technically, she wasn’t able to save all of him and—

Nope. Not thinking that. Lup shakes and forces herself out of that racing thought. Barry’s asleep, and she has nothing to do but wait for him to wake up, and Barry’s room is barely big enough for one dragon, let alone two.

Lup paces as best she can, which means two steps one way and two steps the other. Taako watches from where he’s curled up in one corner of the room with every soft thing he’s stolen from various humans, in a makeshift nest. “Lup,” he says, exasperated, “you pacing won’t make him wake up faster.”

“Then what do I do instead?” she asks, but she stops, sitting down and flopping to her side. Taako stands, nosing at one wing, and she ignores his attempts to prod her closer to the nest.

“Not this,” Taako says, and he sighs, giving up and flopping next to her. “So,” he says. “You and Barry.”

“Yup,” Lup says, and she lifts her head to look at Barry, still asleep in his bed. He looks a lot better than he did when she first saved him—when he passed out and Lup freaked out and nearly stabbed herself in the eye with the metal stuck around her tail, until Taako calmed her down and Lucretia came and took everything off. Even a week later, it’s weird to not have her saddle and tailfin—she rather liked both of them, and she wants them back.

“Dragons don’t flock with humans,” Taako says. He’s not judging her, just stating the facts. “You’re gonna get…everyone’s going to be asking about it. Not everyone will agree.”

Lup snorts. “Maybe I’m not the best dragon,” she says. “Actually, I know I’m not—Barry offered to make me a tailfin only I could control, and I said no, I want us flying together. But that’s okay, I think. Me and Barry can be something beyond that.”

“Well!” Taako says, and he stands, tossing his head. “Can’t argue with that. Go get ‘em, Lulu.”

Lup laughs, rolling onto her back and kicking at her brother, her wings flopping open beside her. “I don’t need your permission,” she says, scrambling to her paws before Taako can pin her. Taako pounces, still, and tackles her into Barry’s desk—it rattles but doesn’t fall.

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “I can’t believe you know Human.”

“Angus is teaching you, dummy, you can’t say anything.” She slaps at his snout, and Taako ducks under it, jumping back a few feet. The room is too cramped for him to fly, but he spreads his wings out anyways, as though he wants to try.

There’s a rustling from the bed and Lup spins to face it.

“And that’s my cue,” Taako says, tucking his wings back in and squeezing past Lup to the door, nosing it open. “Seeya, Lulu. Remember that I’m racing you the second you can fly again.”

Lup flicks an ear, but her attention isn’t on Taako—it’s on Barry, who’s grumbling and sitting up in bed. Lup almost bounces over to him, and hops up onto his bed, cramming as much of her as she can get onto it. Barry rubs his eyes before he notices her, and he does a double take.

“Lup?” he asks, and she just nods, pressing her nose to his head before hopping up to drag herself onto one of the rafters, staring down at him with a toothy grin. “Why are you in my room? How are you in my room? Fuck, does Dav know?”

Lup laughs, dropping down from the rafter to bump against Barry. “It’s fine,” she tells him, because that part, at least, is. Barry looks like he’s going to ask more, but he pulls the blankets aside when he moves to get out of bed, and freezes when he sees what happen to his left leg.

Lup sniffs at the wood-and-metal leg—a prosthetic, she’s heard people calling it. She looks back up at Barry. “We match,” she tells him, and Barry looks back to her single tailfin.

“I’ll make you a new tailfin,” Barry says, and Lup nuzzles him. He hugs her tight, and sighs. “Soon as I can, promise.”

“I know you will,” Lup says, and steps back to Barry can stand. He manages a step before he trips, and Lup’s right there to catch him, something for him to lean against. It took her a while to figure out how to live with one tailfin, and then how to live with a prosthetic one—she gets it. “I love you.”

Barry looks down at her, as she helps him down the stairs. “Is that a thing we can do?” he asks. Lup twitches her ears, amused.

“Thought we already agreed to,” she says.

“Yeah, but—I’m worried.” Barry frowns at her when she laughs. “What? It’s true!”

“Well, _I_ want to,” she says, “and if you also want to, then that’s that. And…well. You might want to see this one.”

She helps him out the door and down the stairs, all the way to the exit. Barry opens the door, and Lup catches sight of Carey—and it really was Carey, which was a fun reunion, and they also found where Killian was hiding which was even better—and Magnus. She’s not too sure what they’re doing, though, because Barry slams the door shut a second later. Lup tilts her head. What does he think is up?

“Lup,” he says, carefully.

Lup ignores him and pushes the door open, and Barry, because she’s the only thing keeping him up, is forced to follow.

Lup likes the village, now. She preens—it took some work, and she wasn’t there for all of it, but she was there for some, being one of the only dragons to understand humans. But with the king dead there’s no reason for them to be enemies, and everybody saw her and Barry working together to fix the king problem. Everyone saw that she saved his life.

It’s much more dragon-friendly, now. No longer are weapons turned against them. There are perches, around town, and everyone’s slowly but surely learning how to speak. Take Magnus and Carey, for example—neither of them know the other’s language, but they’re getting along great. Lup notices Taako dart out of the sky, and she calls out a greeting—her brother chirps one right back, and nods at Barry, before taking off again.

“Sir! Sir!” Angus yells, running past them and after Taako. “You promised you’d let me fly if gave you the fish!”

Lup snorts. Taako’s bad at keeping promises. Angus skids to a stop, noticing the two of them.

“Oh! Barry! I’m glad you’re alive,” he says, and Barry just blinks. “Now I have to go catch Taako! He’s very bad at letting me fly with him.” He darts off again, to the sound of Taako’s laughter. Taako does, however, stay low, and Lup rolls her eyes. Taako is fond of Angus because he’s tiny, and he’s not fooling anybody.

“What is this?” Barry breathes. “Did I really die?”

“No, but not for lack of trying,” Davenport says, approaching them. Lup nods to him, but Barry starts and nearly falls over. Lup catches him on the edge of her wing. “You and Lup—” Barry is still the only human who can perfectly pronounce her name, but everyone else is trying, which Lup didn’t actually think would happen, “—killed the king. The dragons had nowhere to go. So…” he gestures out to the entire town.

“I’m in love with Lup,” is Barry’s stunned response to all of that, and Lup holds herself a little higher. Barry scratches her side, and Lup knows that yeah, this was the right choice.

“I’m sure you two can figure that out,” Davenport says, but Lup isn’t paying any attention to him—Lucretia is approaching with a bundle in her arms and Lup _knows_ what that is.

“Barry,” Lucretia greets, handing everything to him: the new tailfin and saddle. Lup bounces around Barry, who’s still stunned. “Me and Magnus finished this, using your blueprints.”

“And now you’re going to attach it,” Lup says, tugging at Barry’s arm. “C’mon! I promised Taako we’d go racing.”

“I—yeah,” Barry says, and he gets to work attaching everything. Lup leaps into the air once he’s done—the new tailfin is the same color as her scales, and it’s fireproof, too—she and Taako donated their shed scales to be crushed and used to paint over it. Lup was a little bit involved in building it, after all. She fans it in and out and in and out—it’s perfect. And, to make it better…

She twists and bumps the little lever, and prods Barry until he gives in and hops onto her back. The new saddle is just as comfy as the last one, nothing digging into Lup’s scales at all. Barry moves his foot on the stirrup, and that part works the same: he controls it, when he’s in the saddle, and they can fly _together._

“Lup,” Barry says, nearly breathless. Lup purrs.

“Typically,” she says, “dragons who are interested in each other show off through flight. A dance, we call it. But I think you and me already did that, so…”

“Do dragons have a word for when both parties accept?” Barry asks.

Lup shrugs. “Love,” she says, “togetherness.” And then: “Wanna fly?”

The answer is always yes, and they take off, soaring low, for a bit, just enough to find Taako. He’s a bit too busy ‘bullying’ Angus, though, but promises Lup a race later. She laughs and she and Barry dive under little archway and out over the ocean, just the two of them. From here, she can see the entire village: humans and dragons together. Not perfect, yet, but learning how to be.

It’s a dream to fly again. Lup gives the village a final look, before taking off into the air like it’s her home—and isn’t it? She’s a dragon, and her wings flow through the air without her having to think about it. And her new tailfin, and Barry with her—it’s great, and it’s everything she wants, all piled up into one.

“Is it working?” Barry asks, hunched over her back to keep the air from stopping him. Lup’s missed him, missed his familiar weight.

“It works!” she calls, and to prove her point, she spirals up and into the air—Barry tucks her prosthetic tailfin in, she tucks in the real one, and wing whistles against her tucked-flat ear-flaps. She bursts through the clouds with a shower of raindrops, and roars her joy. Barry joins in with an excited shout of his own.

To fly like this is a brilliant thing, Lup decides. The dance she and Barry performed was fun, yes, but this is something new altogether—this is them _together,_ this is them knowing they’re in love, and isn’t that something to behold? She shrieks joyously again, finishing her spin and letting herself fall straight down. She cranes her neck to look at Barry, and she grins. He grins right back.

Falling, too, is fun. She snaps her wings out at the last second, catches herself before they hit the ocean, and soars right back up again. This is what it is to love something! The exhilaration in her heart, the roar of wind around her, Barry’s hand against her scales. They veer a sharp left, bank steeply, and Lup feels like she could reach out and catch the wind in her claws. Like they could fly forever, together, and keep going until they hit the edge of the world.

And they could do that now, if they chose to. She’s not trapped anymore, but she’s free, and Barry’s free, and to top it off they’re free _together._

“I love you!” Lup purrs, not sure if Barry can hear her words, but she lets the feeling thrum though her and he can hear that, she knows. It’s an unconventional relationship, theirs is, the first of its kind. But Lup’s never wanted to do things how everyone else did. She was born to fly, born to explore—not to stay in one spot her whole life.

Barry pets _love you too_ into her scales, repetitive, soothing motions. Lup grins. This is her future, their future.

And she’s really, really excited for what’s to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and done!!! this story is over! i for one had a great time writing it, and it gave me an excuse to get really into httyd for a hot second there. i hope you all enjoyed, and thanks for coming on this journey with me! this is such a niche concept, and i really didn't know what to expect.
> 
> as for the future: i do want to write (and have started) sequels to this, that would be aus of the second and third httyd movies. the second one is done, just in deep editing, and the third one is like, a quarter of the ways started. but i've got no ideas when those are going to go up. all my classes are online due to, yknow, coronavirus n all that, but the thing is: yes my day now ends much earlier. however, i am using all this extra time to get REALLY into fantasy high, and after that i might finally subscribe to the naddpod patreon to relisten to naddpod, and then also all the short rests. the only thing i like, write daily is my big taz novel, and then other random things if i feel like it, which are currently more of a naddpod au, and also more in my warrior cats au, for some reason. 
> 
> so, tldr: more in this universe someday! but not for a while. so if you liked this, keep an eye on the series! and thank you again for reading and commenting and enjoying the story!


End file.
